Pet Circle raises $125m to become Australia’s latest unicorn

Dean Blake

8th Dec 2021

E-commerce firm Pet Circle has become Australia’s latest unicorn, raising $125 million in a series C funding round aimed at growing its product range and warehousing operations to drive fresh growth.

According to a report in AFR, the funding round was led by US-based Prysm Capital and local player TDM Growth Partners, as well as AirTree Ventures and Baillie Gillford.

The business, which was founded a decade ago, saw massive growth throughout the pandemic due to more people taking on pets in order to bring some fun to locked-down life.

“As a result, Pet Circle increased its range by over 25 per cent this year,” chief executive and co-founder Michael Frizell told Inside Retail earlier this year.

“Covid-19 pushed a lot of demand online… we believe we have a role to play in educating pet parents across nutritional, lifestyle and behavioural topics. As such, we have grown our team of vets from four to 23 over the last three months.”

Frizell said he expects the pet category to be driven almost entirely by online, following the changes to the way people shopped during the pandemic, and that Pet Circle has been prioritising a number of growth initiatives over the course of the last year: including improvement of their last mile network, improving customer service, range expansion, and, importantly, key investments into data and people.

“We are on a mission to reinvent the experience of pet ownership by building an integrated platform that connects out customers to 24/7 vet advice and offers the largest and highest quality range of products and services in Australia,” Frizell said in a statement announcing the cash raise.