Pet owners may soon have an option to prepare home-cooked meals for their canines at the touch of a button.
Phoenix-based Artie recently landed an undisclosed round of seed funding led by Naples, Florida-based ROC Venture Group and is planning to launch its artisan-inspired pet meal cups by the end of the year, said co-founder Scott Eller.
Artie’s meals — a blend of freeze-dried and dehydrated meat, fruits, vegetables and grains — are formulated by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and portioned in recyclable and shelf-stable cups, which are shipped directly to customers’ doors every month. Artie's countertop appliance scans the meal cups and delivers a pre-programmed combination of steam and hot water to cook them.
“You pop it in and hit one button. Then, in about three minutes or so, you've got a meal that has been lightly cooked and hydrated,” Eller said. “The temperature is brought down to a perfect serving temperature between 95 and 105 degrees, which is the temperature an animal would eat at if it was hunting in the wild.”
In addition to its seed capital raise, Artie took home $50,000 as grand prize winner of Purina’s Pet Care Innovation Prize in March. The startup was selected from more than 140 companies in the U.S. and Canada to pitch in front of investors and industry experts at the annual Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Florida.
Eller, a former vice president of sales for pet food brand Blue Buffalo, founded Artie in 2021 with business partner William Levy, an engineering and technical product development executive.
Prior to launching Artie, the two co-founders operated Full Life Co., a pet treats business that sold products to PetSmart, Petco and other retailers, Eller said.
“We built a pretty successful treat company that had profitable growth every year since we launched our first product,” Eller said.
Eller’s idea for Artie was sparked by a family dog that struggled with eating consistently, he said.
“We started just thinking about what we could do to help her. For a while, my family tried cooking home-cooked meals for her and all the time and energy that goes into that just wasn't sustainable,” Eller said. “Then, we tried frozen delivery services that showed up on my doorstep here in Phoenix and melted in the summer heat before I could even get them inside. At the end of the day, we put our heads together and came up with the idea behind Artie.”
Operations to grow in Phoenix
Artie began as a side hustle, but became its own entity after Eller and Levy saw a market opportunity.
“There are many people that have struggled with nutrition for their pets... I think we all know that cooking for pets is difficult to sustain over the long term, just from a time commitment,” Eller said. “I think for us, it was the realization that if we could deliver a truly super-healthy, home-cooked meal for pets and do it at the touch of a button, it’s sort of that crossroads of true home cooking and convenience.”
The company, which has an office in north Phoenix, plans to expand its headcount in the coming months as it scales, Eller said.
“We're committed to growing our headquarters here in Phoenix, and we will be building out our team here in Phoenix with respect to office operations and customer service,” Eller said. “Our food manufacturing is in Kansas City, so we'll have a foot in Phoenix and a foot in the greater Kansas City area. All of our food is going to be domestically sourced and produced here in the U.S.”
In addition to its meal cups for dogs, Artie sees potential to tap into the puppy and cat food markets as well as developing an app that provides nutritional details and calorie consumption for pets.
"Ultimately, what we want to do is be a partner with pet parents for the health and wellness of their pets," Eller said.
