KatKin Raises $22 Million For Its Online Direct-To-Consumer Cat Food Brand

Founded by siblings Brett and Nikki O’Farrell, coming from backgrounds in finance and advertising respectively, KatKin is a direct-to-consumer service for personalized cat food.

KatKin’s service bears a lot of similarity to meal kit delivery products like Gousto but for cat food.

Users pay for a monthly subscription of cat food that has been tailored to their cat’s attributes and needs and is delivered to their home.

The Series A round was led by Verlinvest and Perwyn with participation from Octopus Ventures.

The founders said the fresh funds will be invested in expanding manufacturing capability, research and development and marketing.

The duo, both cat owners themselves, believe that there is an under-served market for online sales of specialized cat food as dogs and their owners have garnered most of the investor attention – even though the global cat food market is tipped to be worth over $40 billion.

"There's no singular global cat brand that is really trusted and uncompromising," Brett said.

"As a result, a lot of the capital, especially in the emerging company category, tends to go to dog-first companies."

Nikki said that the dog market has been more visible and prevalent for investors to latch on to.

"A cat parent and their cat is a very private relationship at the moment within your home and so I think that's also perhaps something that's not understood fully by investors coming into the space, if they don't have cats themselves."

The siblings are pushing the unique recipes and the meat content of the food that they manufacture. According to the founders, some cat food makers on the market overstate the meat content of their products.

"Cats are harder and you do have an inherent challenge on palatability that you don't have with dogs," Brett said.

KatKin’s meal boxes are made up of meat that has been steam cooked and frozen and delivered to customers in insulated boxes. Cats are obligate carnivores, depending on meat for their nutrition. All of its recipes have been formulated by a veterinary nutrition expert.

"Cats need meat. There's certain bodily functions that they cannot actually do without proper protein that comes from meat," Nikki said. "All our meals are 100% fresh cooked meat. We wanted to reduce many of the risks associated with raw food manufacturing and production."

Monthly subscriptions range from £50 to £64, Brett said. Currently the service is only available in the UK.

He added this latest funding round will be used to bolster its presence in its home market with a view to expanding internationally.

"What this funding is meant to do is to prove that the unit economics of the business work in the UK. The UK is very much our home market, our test market. But the ambition is to build a global cat brand. The plan would be to enter the US at some point next year."