By Anthony Noto – Reporter, New York Business Journal
Buddy, who belongs to The Farmer's Dog CEO Jonathan Regev, sits in one of the company's boxes.
This dog food startup is having its day.
The Farmer's Dog, a direct-to-consumer pet food company, had been sniffing around for some funding, and this week, the New York-based company confirmed that it raised $39 million in series B capital.
Total funding for the subscription service now hovers around $49 million.
Insight Venture Partners, also based in New York, led the effort. The firm was joined by other investors, including Shasta Ventures and Forerunner Ventures.
The Farmer's Dog is known for preparing human-grade dog food using fresh ingredients and nutrients dogs need like iron, vitamin, calcium and more and mails it to subscribes. It's akin to Nestlé-backed Freshly — but for canines.
The cost to subscribe to The Farmer's Dog varies on a dog's size and age, but subscriptions start at $3 a day for small dogs.
The Farmer’s Dog’s products are currently comparable to higher-end commercial products. During the company's beta period, the product was made in a shared commercial kitchen in Brooklyn but now that it's expanding nationwide.
The idea for The Farmer's Dog rose in 2014 when the company's founder Jonathan Regev and his then-roommate, Brett Podolsky, were trying to find food for Podolsky's sickly rottweiler, Jada. The two found that making the dog's food at home made her feel better.
Regev and Podolsky then saw how other dog owners were sharing homemade dog food recipes online and grew inspired. Both left their past jobs and launched The Farmer's Dog.
"I wanted to create the ability for people to feed their dogs the real food that they want to feed but in an easy and convenient way where they could feel confident and feel a little piece of mind, where they could trust where it was coming from," Podolsky previously told New York Business Journal.
The Farmer's Dog was already profitable before it accepted a $2 million seed funding round in 2016 from Collaborative Fund, Forerunner Ventures and SV Angels. It later raised $8.1 million in 2017.
The Farmer’s Dog currently has millions of customers across the country.