The one-stop online shop for dog sitting and walking will use the money to continue its accelerating growth and expand internationally and into different pet services — including cat care.
Rover.com, the Seattle company offering a one-stop online shop for dog sitting and walking, has reeled in another $65 million from investors to continue its accelerating growth.
Rover’s latest funding round was led by new investor Spark Capital, and comes months after the dog-focused marketplace raised a separate $40 million round. The company has raised a total of $155 million since it was founded in 2011.
Rover boasts more than 140,000 dog sitters on its site, and people book a service using Rover every four seconds, it says.
The Seattle company bought one of its biggest competitors, Santa Monica, California-based DogVacay, in March. Rover has finished merging the two companies’ databases of sitters and pet owners into one system, using Rover’s brand, said CEO Aaron Easterly.
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The company has about 240 employees, mostly in its Seattle and Spokane offices. Rover plans to use the new funding to continue expanding in the U.S. and Canada and launching into new countries, as well as introducing different pet services.
Rover built its name with overnight dog-sitting services, but its more recent daytime services are booming, Easterly said. Dog walking and daytime drop-in services are growing quickly, along with one more surprising feature — cat sitting and drop-in services.
People using the site were registering their cats as a breed of dog, Easterly said. “It kind of took off” as the company allowed the practice, he noted, so Rover developed a way for people to officially sign up their cats.
The company is working on providing more support for cat and other pet owners.
Bespoke Strategies and StepStone Group also invested in Rover’s latest round. Existing investors Madrona Venture Group, Menlo Ventures, Foundry Group, Technology Crossover Ventures and OMERS Ventures also participated.