Monday, November 18

Petdom – India’s First Pet Adoption Platform

Incepted in September 2015, Petdom is India’s first pet adoption platform. The company based out of Delhi. Petdom leverage technology to bring pets from individuals, animal shelters, ethical breeders and NGOs under one virtual roof making their discovery easy and helping in expediting the process of adoption.

Well, when we were conceiving the idea for the company 1yr ago the fifth season of Games of Thrones was aired. Neha Khandelwal (not in the picture) got the inspiration for the name Petdom, there are kingdoms for humans so why not a Kingdom for Pets, Petdom, because Pets rule our world. Maybe if we do let them, it will be the happiest place. 🙂

Petdom Team
Petdom Team

We are a team of motivated and passionate entrepreneurs/engineers/designer from DCE/NSIT/NIFT who are pet lovers and dedicated to the cause of finding these pets loving homes in India. The idea grew out of our love for pets and the common belief that every person’s soulmate is unique and so is the pet for them.

We combine our unique experience of working in Product, Business, Design and Technology companies and leverage our skills in making Petdom possible. Working at companies like Times of India, Niffler, Helpchat & Carwale, we know all the various aspects of running a technology company. Being part of large teams for various initiatives right from our college life, we have come to thrive in high­energy environments where moving rapidly is the only norm.

Indian Pet Industry is already a $1.2 billion industry and the fastest growing pet care market in the world with a CAGR of 35%. With no single brand or player in this industry who caters to all the needs of a pet owner and their pets, we have an opportunity to create a brand in this niche segment.

 

Idea Conception:

I wanted to bring home a four-legged member and the only information available online was on OLX and other facebook groups with no single online platform wherein you can get information about pets. I also wanted to be able to know more about the pet and to make the right choice as I stay in an apartment but there was no platform which allowed me to do that.

This motivated us to look for like minded people and the love for technology and pets brought us all together. We decided to build an online platform which will make it easy for pet lover/parent to get home a four-legged family member with all the information around parenting available at one place to ease the discovery of pets resulting in the expedition of the entire adoption process.

We are a pet adoption platform and that’s the unique proposition that drives user to our website. We are helping pets find their “THE FOREVER HOME”. We have got great response from people and all the growth so far for us has been on the strength of word of the mouth! The user acquisition has been easy as we are solving a social problem.

We have also collaborated with organizations like People for Animal (PFA’s), Friendicoes, SPCA, Sanjay Gandhi Animal Shelters, Sonadi etc. to have their adoptable dogs listed on the platform. Currently, we have 400+ dogs listed on the platform and soon we will have 10,000+ dogs listed. The android app and website are live and running. In last 2 months, we have received around 312 adoption inquiry and we helped 57 dogs find their deserving home. We will be launching a crowdfunding campaign in March to help another 500 dogs find their home.

petdom app screen
Petdom App screen

 

We have tried to codify the behavioral parameters of different dog breeds. Although more art than science, we have assigned certain scores to each breed and then use these to suggest which dog would be suitable for a prospective owner depending upon their surroundings and their purpose of adopting a dog. Our entire stack runs with Apache, Python, Javascript & PostgreSQL.

Currently, we are a team of 6 people based out of Delhi, working hard to help the pets find the home they deserve. We are planning to expand to a subscription based service for pet owners across the country. The user can either select from recommended subscription boxes or can customize their boxes based on the needs of their pets. The user can also choose from different pet related services like training, be walking, grooming etc. as a part of the box.

At the same time, we work tirelessly with animal shelters across the country to get more pets on our current platform so that we can ensure even a higher reach across all the cities & towns of India.