Munich Startup: What does Petleo do? What problem does it solve?
Julian Weritz, Petleo: Petleo is dedicated to the digitalization of veterinary practices and other pet service providers, such as animal physiotherapists, dog groomers, nutritionists, alternative practitioners, and dog training schools. Our Pet health platform connects veterinarians and pet care service providers with pet owners through practical tools such as online appointment bookings, electronic pet health records or fully digital new customer registrations in order to relieve the burden on providers and provide transparency for owners along the entire value chain.
We believe that modern veterinary care requires more than just a visit to the clinic. We improve efficiency, make it easier for pet owners to book services, and ensure that all pets receive timely and thorough treatment, rather than having to deal with time-consuming administrative tasks.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Julian Weritz: Digital solutions already exist, but what sets Petleo apart from others is our connectivity. Petleo integrates seamlessly into existing systems and promotes digital data exchange between the various stakeholders. Digitizing these complex processes has numerous advantages: In the past, pet owners would return home from vet appointments with a ton of printed papers, CD-ROMs, or handwritten notes. Today, thanks to the Petleo platform, the entire health record is available in a structured and collected format on your mobile phone with just one click – and in a matter of seconds. Automatic reminders for follow-up appointments and vaccination routines also help ensure that no appointment is forgotten. And best of all, you can share the results with family and friends. This way, everyone knows immediately how their beloved furry friend is doing.
In addition, our Mix of expertise in the team unique. Not only do we have a veterinarian as co-founder who understands the intricacies and needs of the profession, but we also have professionals with extensive experience in the e-health field, particularly in human medicine. This combination gives us a tremendous advantage in creating a customized, intuitive, and effective platform.
Making knowledge about your own pet visible and usable
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Julian Weritz: We recognized the gaps in communication between veterinarians and pet owners, as well as the digital lag in the German veterinary sector. There was no comprehensive system that could collect and digitally manage all the information related to one's own furry friend. This gave rise to the vision of an app that addresses the many pitfalls and challenges faced by pet owners and makes knowledge about their pets visible and usable for pet owners.
The digital application was then expanded to include B2B features and integrated into the everyday operations of clinics and practices. Our seamless interfaces play a key role in this: Petleo integrates into veterinarians' existing practice management systems without interfering with internal processes or existing systems, or requiring a complete system overhaul.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Julian Weritz: Our biggest challenge was proving ourselves as a young team. We also had to do a lot of convincing regarding the digitization of outdated systems. We bridged the gap between legacy systems on the practitioner side and our modern app.
To visualize this lengthy process, we like to describe this challenge with a metaphor: We are essentially the data highway that ensures that cars (animal data sets) and trucks (service providers) can travel smoothly and quickly on our expanded route. After initial test drives and road surface repairs, about six months after our founding, we finally managed to earn a lot of money from toll fees (B2B subscriptions).
We are now the market leader in the DACH region and Luxembourg for digital pet health and, in addition to attracting key stakeholders in the B2B market, we have also been able to build a great 20-person team and win them over to our vision.
Petleo is intended to become an all-in-one solution
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Julian Weritz: Within a year, we aim to be the leading online booking platform in the DACH region and have completed initial rollouts in other European countries. We are also working intensively on additional features to digitize processes, such as a digital health record and AI-supported evaluation and prediction of animal data. Furthermore, Petleo will increasingly evolve into an all-in-one solution and, in the future, also enable payment and asynchronous communication between practitioners and pet owners.
In five years, we want to have digitized all relevant processes within the value chain and be the leading platform for pet health throughout Europe.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Julian Weritz: For us personally, Munich is the new Berlin. With its vibrant tech scene, we've found both qualified talent and valuable partners here. We regularly participate in BayStartup events, were part of the Insurtech Hub Munich badge, were able to network with many other startups, and have major players like Zooplus and Evidensia within walking distance. We also have fantastic investors from the greater Munich area on board, such as Markus Reichenberger, Katja Lindo, Ulrich Müller-Menrad, Georg Hofer, and Patrick Palacin.
Munich Startup: Quick exit or long breath?
Julian Weritz: Our vision for Petleo isn't a quick exit. We are determined to actively shape and revolutionize the pet care of tomorrow. We are always open to strategic partnerships that can accelerate our mission, because our primary focus is on long-term impact. From the outset, Petleo was planned as an open platform to enable all parties in the pet ecosystem to benefit from mutual added value through the use of structured data. Our main target groups include veterinarians and service providers such as physiotherapists, pet groomers, and, of course, pet owners themselves. We also serve other cooperation partners such as pet health insurers and the pet pharmaceutical industry, and are already working on collaborations with laboratories and research institutions.
