Three Founders. One Cohort.

Hundreds of startups applied. Only a select handful were chosen for Pawsible Ventures’ inaugural venture studio. We spoke with three of those founders building companies across AI, preventive pet health, and veterinary research to understand what set them apart, what they’ve learned since joining the program, and the advice they’d give other entrepreneurs hoping to build the next great pet company.

We spoke with

• Ana Malhotra — Co-Founder & CEO, Tato
• Lauren Burrows — Co-Founder & CCO, Charlie Pet Health
• Davide Confalonieri, PhD — Founder & CEO, Lab4Paws

Davide Confalonieri — Founder & CEO, Lab4Paws

Give us your elevator pitch. What problem are you solving?

Have you ever walked in the pet food aisle of a pet food store or supermarket and thought “I can’t distinguish one product from the next?” If you answered yes, there is a reason: despite all the claims on the package, almost none of the challenger brands (including supplements and nutraceuticals) have data to back them up, and as a consequence, they can’t differentiate nor hope to improve their positioning in front of pet parents and veterinarians.

With increasing awareness about pet health and a trend towards functional food, we give brands a way to test and prove the health benefits of their products in the lab, without spending months and large budgets on clinical trials. In this way, we give them the trust to defend their claims, and we build the data and experimental models to solve the next big issue: the complete lack of veterinary-based alternative methods for replacing animal testing in veterinary drug and chemical development.

What was the moment you realized this wasn't just an interesting idea, but a business worth building?

We’ve been working with veterinary pharma on the development of new drugs and diagnostics for the past two years, and have developed a biobank alongside our cellular models. We were particularly intrigued when the first animal nutrition and pet supplement companies came to us to perform studies, and we wanted to understand more about what the pain points were in the industry.

It took a while to nail down the target customer; unfortunately, there are still many companies that have only pixie dust-level active ingredients in their products and cannot be bothered to change this, but an increasing number of brands really care about the functionality of their products. We now see a continuous flow of companies interested in testing their products, and I think this is only the beginning.

Pawsible Ventures reviewed hundreds of applicants and selected only a small group for Cohort 1. Why do you think your company stood out? Was it the team, traction, technology, market opportunity, or something else?

I think execution is the name of the game. We didn’t start with big money; we were bootstrapped for the first two years and managed to be quite lean and move fast. But we also pivoted several times and learned and re-oriented ourselves. The market opportunity is big, but meaningless if you can’t execute, and at this stage still an educated guess. The gap we recognized is structural; the lack of research tools and models and resources makes doing research and developing things in veterinary science so much more challenging; we had to do something. The perseverance, I think, was a decisive factor in the selection.

What are you most excited to gain from the program (capital, mentorship, industry connections, fundraising support)?

Two levels, personal and business. Being an entrepreneur (especially a first-time entrepreneur) is brutal, far from the funny, jolly ride described in movies. The job breaks you and rebuilds you every day, and that’s how you grow. I feel I have gained many new friends in this cohort, and sharing this journey with other people (especially so talented as the participants of this first cohort are) is absolutely incredible.

On a business level, the support in fundraising is obviously important, but it’s the mentorship that made all the difference. The guys from Pawsible are truly playing in another league, and they can slap you around with the bare truth all day long. As a founder, getting this kind of feedback is gold. Absolutely blasted, it’s definitely also thanks to them that we performed our last pivot, and I think they are building something absolutely magical.

What's the biggest milestone you're working toward over the next 12 months?

Systemization. Once the business model is validated, we’ll have to find a way to make ourselves redundant in the day-to-day operations and share and systematize our knowledge so that new employees can be trained and we can tackle the next-level issues. We still have many long-term goals, including a proprietary drug development pipeline, which will require next-level thinking and great talent.

Lauren Burrows — Co-Founder & CCO, Charlie Pet Health

Give us your elevator pitch. What problem are you solving?

Charlie is building the preventive health platform for pets. Today, veterinary care is still largely reactive: most pet parents visit the vet when something is visibly wrong, often after a condition has already progressed and become more difficult and expensive to manage.

We make proactive care simple and accessible by combining routine diagnostics, convenient access through our veterinary partners, and AI-powered health insights in one easy-to-understand experience. Our goal is to help pet parents establish a clearer health baseline for their pets, identify meaningful changes earlier, and ultimately give pets more healthy years with their families.

What was the moment you realized this wasn’t just an interesting idea, but a business worth building?

It was not one single conversation - it was the consistency across hundreds of them.

We spoke with pet parents at expos, in veterinary waiting rooms, through our personal networks, and anywhere else people were willing to share their experiences. We repeatedly heard the same concerns: people wanted to be more proactive about their pets’ health, but they did not know what to ask for, where to begin, or how to interpret the information they received.

The real turning point was seeing how quickly people moved beyond simply saying it was a good idea. They signed up to receive early access, referred their friends, and even placed deposits to secure their spots before we had officially launched. That willingness to commit showed us we were solving a real and urgent problem—not just building something people found interesting.

Why do you think your company stood out to Pawsible Ventures?

I think Pawsible saw both the scale of the opportunity and the potential for Charlie to become a category-defining company.

They understand how large and underserved the preventive pet-health market is, and they were excited by our vision for making proactive care more accessible, understandable, and valuable for pet parents. They recognized that this is not simply a single product or service, but an opportunity to build a much broader platform—and potentially a billion-dollar business—at the intersection of veterinary care, diagnostics, consumer health, and AI.

Just as importantly, they believed in the founding team. Our team brings together experience across human health, veterinary care, artificial intelligence, consumer brand building, and company creation, including founders who have previously built and exited businesses. We had also spent time building a relationship with Alex and the Pawsible team before the application process, which gave them the opportunity to understand our vision, our capabilities, and how committed we are to building Charlie.

What were you most excited to gain from the program?

The program exceeded our expectations. Alex, Hussein, Andrew, and Ali brought an incredible depth of experience and were extremely generous with their time, advice, and networks.

We gained clarity around a differentiated and scalable go-to-market strategy, pressure-tested several of our key assumptions, and learned from people who deeply understand both the pet-care ecosystem and what it takes to build a venture-scale company.

The community was equally valuable. We were introduced to an exceptional network of founders, operators, and investors who have continued to support us beyond the formal program. The combination of mentorship, strategic clarity, and meaningful relationships made the experience incredibly valuable.

What’s the biggest milestone you’re working toward over the next 12 months?

Over the next 12 months, our biggest milestone is expanding Charlie into four cities—one in Canada and three in the United States—while proving that our model can scale efficiently across multiple markets.

Our core product is already built and ready to launch. From here, we will continue developing proprietary AI capabilities that make pet-health information more personalized, understandable, and actionable. We will also expand into complementary, higher-value services that deepen our relationship with pet parents and strengthen the overall economics of the business.

At the same time, we will continue building our ambassador network and establishing Charlie as a company that is deeply connected to the communities it serves. We do not simply want to launch in new cities; we want to become a trusted part of how local pet parents care for their

Ana Malhotra — Co-Founder & CEO, Tato

Give us your elevator pitch. What is Tato, and what problem are you solving for the pet industry?

The pet care industry is tens of thousands of great businesses that don't talk to each other.

Your daycare, groomer, boarding, and vet all have separate systems. So the pet parent ends up carrying records around and repeating the same information to each one.

We want Tato to connect that whole world. To get there, we're starting by helping pet service businesses actually run their operations. Tato answers calls, reads vaccine records, handles check-ins, books appointments, and does the front-desk work for them. We’re starting here because that’s how pet parents currently communicate with businesses.

You originally built Rome before deciding to pivot and launch Tato. What was the moment you realized the bigger opportunity wasn't another pet business, but the technology powering the entire industry?

Honestly, one of our Rome customers basically handed us the idea for Tato.

They run a membership-only private dog park. Once we got close to their operation, we saw that their software wasn't just annoying; it was making their operations worse. Staff were spending most of their time fixing front-desk problems instead of focusing on the dogs.

One really obvious example was vaccines. Someone had to open every record, find the expiration dates, and check them manually. Every day.

We looked at that and thought: wait, AI can just do this now. And if this one business has the problem, there are probably thousands more. That was the pivot!

Pawsible Ventures reviewed hundreds of applicants and selected only a small group for Cohort 1. Why do you think Tato stood out?

I think they could tell we weren't just founders talking about problems from a distance.

We've spent hundreds of hours inside pet facilities but literally sitting behind the front desk, checking in dogs, working alongside staff, and watching how the day actually runs. Sometimes we find a problem and fix it while we're still there. Very literal dogfooding haha.

The Pawsible team also really understands the pet industry and aligns with our vision for it. So they immediately understood both sides of what we're building: the day-to-day pain operators feel now, and the much bigger opportunity to connect an industry that's still incredibly disconnected.

What are you hoping to get out of the Pawsible program over the coming months?

The biggest thing is honestly the people around it. Pawsible has built an incredible network of people who really know the pet tech startups, not just startups in general.

Of course, meeting investors who understand the vision matters too. But right now, getting closer to people who've spent years operating and building in pet care is the most valuable thing for us.

What's the biggest milestone you're working toward over the next 12 months?

Proving out that we have a product and a vision that this industry truly wants. In other words: product-market fit!

We have 65,000 pets on Tato today. Every facility that joins brings in more pets, more records, more history, so when the next daycare comes on board, Tato already knows a bunch of the dogs walking through their door, and it just works better on day one.

The next 12 months are about growing that number into the hundreds of thousands and proving that Tato becomes more valuable to its users as more businesses join.