Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more

The Funderbeam Blog

Articles, interviews, case studies announcements and more.
Welcome to The Funderbeam Blog.

insights
July 1, 2022

In the Hot Seat – Zenoo

Pet health and wellness company Zenoo provides natural, raw, and freeze-dried dog food subscription service in Europe. We put the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Zenoo Agota Jakutyte in the Hot Seat.

Tell us in a few sentences about your company and the product?

ZENOO is a pet health and wellness brand born from unconditional love between my rescued chihuahua Elly and me. When I had to fight for her health, I reached the world’s TOP leaders in pet health, who told me the number one reason why the health of our pets is going down each year – poor nutrition. We don’t know so many secrets about commercial pet food that you couldn’t imagine…It consists of 46-70% carbohydrates, in other words, sugar. It’s overcooked to make it easy to use but has low nutritional value. So, we switched Elly to an entirely natural raw diet that drastically changed her life. That’s why we wanted to help more pet parents around the world. We made not only healthy but also convenient pet food using the freeze-drying technology used by NASA.

How was 2021 for ZENOO? What were your key challenges?

It was a great year for ZENOO. We closed our first pre-seed round, letting us grow and open new markets. We got traction from many EU countries like the UK, Germany, and Switzerland. We saw that we needed to fuel our more aggressive growth by adding an amazing CMO, spreading our product range to first supplements, and ordering more food flavours to grow basket size.

The main challenge was working capital because we needed to order more food upfront. 

What are your key goals for ZENOO in 2022?

Scale EU market, launch cat food, open B2B segment (we already closed the deal for €1.5M of cat food) and grow our team. We also want to open our personalization funnel where we can increase our basket size, generate more leads and potentially minimize our CAC.

What is the outlook for your sector in the coming year?

Based on data from Euromonitor International, the market size of the dog food segment in the Europe Union is estimated at USD 13.1 billion in 2021, which demonstrates the overall scale of our potential end market.

Who are the company’s principal shareholders and management, and are there any plans for future hires or positions?

We plan to upgrade our customer success department because communication and a smooth monthly subscription process are essential. Also, to ensure that we can fulfil all our clients’ possible needs, we want to add an operations manager to our team. 

Can you profile or paint a picture of a typical customer of ZENOO?

Mostly it’s women from 25-45years old who usually cares about her health and invests in better quality products because she knows the saying “You are what you eat”. 

What is your key message to customers, and how do you convey that information?

 Many health improvements come from switching our products: allergies, longevity, eye staining, digestion, shinier coat, and even cancer & diabetes prevention. Besides health benefits – our product is the most convenient compared to other healthy dog foods. 

What area/ geography/ sector presents the most significant opportunity?

We see the exponential growth of freeze-dried raw food in the US, and we are the pioneers of such food in the EU. So first, we want to scale potential EU countries and open the B2B lines in Asia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and others. And after our next round, we plan to open the US market too.

If you could leave investors with just three words to describe the future of ZENOO, what would they be?

Sustainability, team, growth

How can Funderbeam investors help you?

We always seek advice and help from our investors. Especially for help with marketing, B2B sales, D2C model growth, stock management, and operations. Therefore, we hope our future investors will be glad to share their experiences and help us spread the happy pet vibe.

Read Next
The information about the investment opportunities profiled on this website is provided for general information and marketing purposes only and should not be considered an invitation or inducement to engage in any investment activity. Complete and comprehensive information about an investment opportunity is only available only to investors who have been approved by a Funderbeam group entity.

You should ensure you carefully read the Risk Disclosure Statement before deciding to proceed with any investment or transaction, including making a purchase of securities via the Marketplace. Funderbeam has taken steps to ensure that company and securities offering information is clear, fair and not misleading in accordance with its internal verification procedures. Funderbeam does not provide investment advice or any recommendation to invest. Any investment opportunity on this website should not be considered as an offer to the public and is not directed at or offered to anyone to whom it may not be so directed or offered, or located in a jurisdiction where it is unlawful to do so.

It is important to note that funds are raised, investments are made and trade orders are placed through three investment firm service provider entities: Venturebeam Markets AS (VBAS) (authorised and regulated by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority under permit 4.1-1/212), Venturebeam Markets Limited (VML (authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority under FRN 794918), and Venturebeam Markets Pte. Ltd., (VB Pte) (licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore under Capital Markets Services (CMS) license CMS100863). VBAS and VML are MIFID investment firms.

This page provides you with an overview of the services provided by different entities belonging to Funderbeam group. In the pages of this website, platform, and documents located on these pages (save to where referred otherwise), we generally refer to the group, which includes group of entities being direct or indirect subsidiaries of Funderbeam Ltd, including VBAS, VML, and VB Pte, as “Funderbeam”, “we”, “us” or “our”.

A Funderbeam client (whether investor or company) is a client of the service provider and under the protection of the requirements of the regulator under which that service provider operates: An EEA client’s service provider is VBAS, a UK/ non-EEA/ non-Singapore client’s service provider is VML, and a Singapore client’s service provider is VB Pte.

The applicable Funderbeam service provider has, prior to the offering of the investment offer on its Platform, verified from public registries in reasonable levels of due diligence, notwithstanding the due diligence which is also performed by the Lead Investor where applicable, which will cover at the minimum: a. that the project owner has no criminal record in respect of infringements of national rules in fields of commercial law, insolvency law, financial services law, anti-money laundering law, fraud law or professional liability obligations in all jurisdictions where practicable for such checks to be conducted; b. that the project owner is not established in a non-cooperative jurisdiction, or in a high-risk third country as set out by the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”), and/or other government directives in jurisdictions where Venturebeam is operating.

The Marketplace is operated as an organised market by VB Pte., in Singapore as a Recognised Market Operator (RMO) under the supervision of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. VBAS and VML are Trading Members of the RMO’s Marketplace. Access to the Marketplace for EEA and non-EEA clients is only provided by and through such clients’ service provider (ie VBAS or VML). The Marketplace does not provide services directly to investors outside Singapore.

With respect to any securities or investments offered by a US domiciled Fundraising Company, by visiting this site you confirm you are not a US resident or US person (as defined in Regulation S of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933) and you understand and agree that you are not acquiring any Investments for the account or benefit of any such US resident or US person. No investment opportunity in a US domiciled Fundraising Company is directed at US persons.