There's big money in health care – for pets.
Fursure, an insurance marketplace and mobile banking platform for pet owners, secured $3 million in a seed funding round led by Los Angeles venture capital firm MaC Ventures. Since its launch two years ago, the startup reports it has helped more than 60,000 people avoid enormous emergency bills by connecting them with health insurance coverage for their animals.
The $120 billion U.S. pet industry is anticipated to double by the end of the decade, with health care among the highest-demand products, Fursure co-founder and CEO Catherine Dennig said. And it's a sizable market: There are an estimated 185 million pets in the U.S., and up to 97% of them are uninsured.
"There hasn’t been a financial one-stop-shop platform for pet parents to pay for care across the board," Dennig said. "That’s what we’re building, so everyone can do right by their pets and get them the best care possible, within their budgetary means.”
Sure Ventures, Scrum VC, Western Tech Investment, Slope Fund and Winklevoss Capital, a family office led by entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, also contributed to the seed round. Fursure, which is fully remote with founders based in Miami and New York, is now backed by $6 million in investor capital.
Dennig, a former senior product manager at Facebook, started Fusure with co-founder Keji Xu, previously a solutions architect at Amazon, in 2020. A year later, they were named on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list of consumer technology innovators.
In April, Fursure released a rewards credit card that allows holders to earn points on everyday spends that can be redeemed toward the cost of veterinary bills. The product launched with a 16,000-person waitlist, the company reported.
Fursure isn't the only local venture operating in the pet health care space. This year Dania Beach-based e-commerce giant Chewy (NYSE: CHWY) introduced a new insurance and wellness product to break into the lucrative market. Although inflation is causing some customers to purchase fewer discretionary items, such as toys, Chewy noted that spending for food and health care remains steady.
MaC Venture Capital Managing Partner Adrian Fenty said the pet insurance market has been underserved for decades.
"People are hungry for a one-stop-shop for pet care, so by providing both financial services and insurance Fursure will fill that niche," Fenty said.
For more stories like this one, sign up for Miami Inno newsletters from the South Florida Business Journal and the American Inno network.
