Six new petcare businesses from across Europe and North Africa have been selected to benefit from pet food giant Purina’s accelerator investment fund for 2022.
The Unleashed 2022 programme is designed to drive the growth of participants, supporting the development of innovative new products and services.
This year’s winners are: eniferBio (Finland); MOA Foodtech (Spain); Knok (Portugal); Kibus (Spain); Feragen (Austria); and Vetwork (Egypt). Two of the companies focus on introducing alternative proteins to pet diets to create new, sustainable recipes, while others are focused on advancing the quality of life for pets through new digital solutions and on veterinary care and wellbeing.
The six successful businesses were chosen from more than 150 applicants across 28 countries, and each company will be assigned a personal team of Purina experts for mentoring, plus 50,000 Swiss Francs to develop a project to grow their business over the next six months.
Kim Bill, head of the Purina Accelerator Lab, said: “We are delighted to welcome such an extraordinary group of innovators into the 2022 cohort. Just like Purina, these businesses are driven to innovate and challenge the industry through technology, and data-driven solutions. While the next six months will be busy, we cannot wait to see what they will build.”
Jeff Hamilton, CEO at Nestlé Purina PetCare in Europe, added: “After a global pandemic, the number of pet owners and animal lovers worldwide is greater than ever, and the industry is responding by accelerating its innovation, offering greener, smarter and better solutions than ever before.
“We are proud to be facilitating the work of these start-ups and look forward to seeing the impact these companies make for pet owners in Europe and beyond.”
“More and more attention is being paid to the quality and sustainability of the ingredients in pet food today and Purina is a leader in this segment, so obviously an ideal partner to investigate whether there is a product-market-fit.”
Purina’s Unleashed programme has accelerated 12 start-ups over the last two years including UK firms BorrowMyDoggy, Cat in a Flat, BioKind and PuppyFat.
