Three B Tech final-year students raise 'Fond' hope for pet caring

Bengaluru: There are about 471 million registered dog owners and 373 million cat owners worldwide and about 20 million in India alone. Always being there for your pets is one of your primary concerns. That's not always possible. Families with pets can't even go on weekend outings, let alone long vacations without worrying about them. Finding the right dog-sitter or the right kennel is extremely difficult in India. In the case of cats, they prefer staying home.

A team of three girls - Pallavi G, Vismaya B N and Prarthana Bhat, from PES University are building "Fond", an innovative start-up to solve this problem with deep tech. "Fond" ensures pets are well-fed and hydrated even in the absence of any carers. Also one can track a pet's physical activity and whereabouts. Make sure it's safe and sound, even when no one's around.

"Fond" is a wearable and a smart device to keep your pet healthy and happy. This initiative has been funded by PESU Venture Labs. "Fond" has a smart collar and smart pet feeder, powered by an app to which consumers subscribe to.

What does these innovations do? The collar records daily activity, body temperature and integrated with a feeder measures and controls what pets eat. The automatic feeder is customized for a particular pet. It continuously records the amount of food consumed by the pet. "Fond" includes a user-friendly mobile application that integrates the data collected from both the feeder and the collar and provides intelligent recommendations for food portions based on your dog's breed, gender, age and weight.

How is "Fond" better than others? Unchecked activity levels can cause comorbidities in animals as well and that is one of the primary causes of deaths in urban pets. It aims in providing a better and easier pet nurturing ability to them. It can be used to alert when the pets are overeating. It can be used to alert when the pets are not active or are sick.

Though in the final year of their BTech, founders already have raised a seed round of funding from PESU Venture Labs planning for a direct consumer launch along with presence on ecommerce platforms. Consumers have to buy the hardware and subscribe to their service. They are also in discussions with veterinary doctors and NGOs to deliver comprehensive solutions to pet parents.

In a nutshell, Pallavi says, "We are building the next thing for the animal world. We also believe we are addressing the fundamental need of pets that we love. With "Fond", pets will be happier and healthier than ever."

Suresh, from PVL, who spotted and supported this idea in concept stage, says, "This is an amazingly scalable solution addressing a large global market opportunity. A classic example of how deep tech can solve the problem of everyday life and how passion can bring out true innovation in our youngsters. We are happy with the pilot results and can't wait to see this business scale to higher levels''