Seattle-based pet services marketplace Rover Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ROVR) is looking to grow its European business.
Rover, which reported its third quarter 2023 financial results Monday, launched in Europe before the pandemic, which caused the company to pull back its efforts there. Rover Chief Financial Officer Charlie Wickers said the company started accelerating its efforts in Europe last year, and it will continue to prioritize Europe.
"The hypothesis that we had for Europe was that we could largely leverage the product, technology and marketing playbook that we had built out in the U.S.," Wickers told the Business Journal. "That hypothesis has played out, and it's actually gone better than we expected."
Wickers said Europe and Canada now make up about 10% of Rover's sales, up from low single digits in 2019. He added that, despite the growth in Europe, Rover has only penetrated less than 1% of the pet household market in Europe, giving the company much room for growth without entering new markets.
Entering a new market, however, doesn't require employees based in that market, Wickers said. The blueprint for growth starts with turning on the site in a market to generate traffic. The company then increases its search engine optimization, and Rover can then invest more in marketing.
Rover connects pet owners with services like walkers and sitters. It was founded in 2011 and went public in 2021 through a merger with a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company).
Rover generated $66.2 million in revenue during the third quarter, up from $50.9 million during the same period last year.
Wickers said Rover has a little more than 500 employees, roughly the same amount it had pre-pandemic before the company laid off about half of its workforce. He added that the company will be diligent about its future headcount growth, and it doesn't have immediate plans to grow or reduce its office space.
Rover last year discontinued its in-home grooming efforts. Wickers said Rover is still interested in it, but the specialty skills required for the service made it hard to scale.
The company is also expanding its dog training service, which is currently offered virtually.
"A lot of training actually takes place one-on-one in person, as well as in group sessions," Wickers said. "But before you go that route, we wanted to make sure the virtual training option could drive demand, so it would be logical for us that over time we would launch an extension potentially in the training world."
