Paris-based pet insurance startup Dalma has raised a €15m Series A, as pet tech investment continues to grow in Europe.

What does Dalma do?

It’s a tech-enabled pet insurance provider that wants to use its Series A to launch an app that will aggregate new services beyond insurance: unlimited video calls, direct payment to vets and an ecommerce section selling pet goods. 

Today’s round brings total investment into the one-year old company to €17m. Dalma says it has generated €6m in revenue from 20k customers in just 12 months. 

Who’s investing in Dalma?

Northzone led the Series A round and was joined by Project A and Anterra Capital. 

Existing investors Global Founders Capital also participated, alongside Frst and Kima Ventures, as well as angels such as Sam Edelson (ex-director of product management at home-sharing platform Airbnb), Olivier Bonnet (CTO of ridesharing company Blablacar) and Julien Gigoi (chief actuary of insurtech Luko — one of Sifted’s French tech startups to watch in 2022). 

The pet tech market

Following a pandemic-era surge in pet ownership, funding volumes for pet insurance in Europe remain high after a record 2021 (A large chunk of that went to British pet insurer ManyPets when it raised $350m). 

France is Europe’s second biggest pet tech market after the UK, according to the data analysts at Dealroom. 

Startups are betting that pet owners will continue to lavish spending on their four-legged friends in 2022. With an estimated 200m cats and dogs in European households — a pet population now twice as large as the EU population of children under 15 — pet tech is a €30+bn industry “where no actor has emerged yet as a leader,” says Dalma cofounder Alban De Préville. 

Dalma’s raise is the second significant pet tech raise in Europe in less than a month, after Sweden’s Lassie announced an €11m round in May. Lassie has its own particular twist on insurance — a focus on preventative healthcare and discounts for customers who engage with Lassie’s content. If, for example, you read Lassie’s articles about the foods — like chocolate — that are dangerous for dogs, you could get money off your next premium. 

Sifted take

Enthusiasm for furry friends, it seems, was not merely a pandemic phenomenon. Big name VCs are continuing to sniff out deals in pet tech, a sector where startups are seeing more sober valuations than their counterparts in more hyped industries.

Eanna Kelly is a contributing editor at Sifted. He tweets from @EannaKelly1