While fitness trackers from Fitbit and Jawbone have been gaining some mainstream adoption recently, fitness trackers for your dog might still seem like in the realm of novelty. But that's not stopping investors.
Whistle, the maker of a fitness tracker for your dog, is raising a $15 million in a Series B venture capital round, bringing its total funding to $25 million.
Whistle's $100 Fitbit-like dog collar features a 3-axis accelerometer tracks movement, Bluetooth for connecting with your smartphone and WiFi for some location-tracking capabilities. Whistle's app collects that fitness data and lets you track the activity level over periods of time.
With this funding announcement, Whistle is also revealing that it has acquired Snaptracs, which makes Tagg, a persistent GPS tracker for your dog that can also track movement. Snaptracs was spun out of San Diego chipmaker Qualcomm a year and a half ago. Unlike Whistle's one-time hardware fee, Tagg requires buying the $100 device while also paying a $10 a month subscription fee. Together, the two companies now have over 100,000 of their devices out there on dogs.
The cost of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Tagg's GPS tracking technology will be integrated into future Whistle devices, said Whistle CEO and founder Ben Jacobs in a phone call. Existing Tagg customers can expect continued support on their devices. Earlier this month, Tagg had just launched its latest GPS tracker that included a temperature sensor to make sure your dog doesn't get too hot or cold.
The market for fitness trackers and GPS trackers for pets could potentially be pretty big. Americans spend a lot of money on their pets: $58.51 billion in 2014, according to the American Pet Products Association.
“As the Internet of Things moves into these initial areas, people are looking at other key parts of life,” said Jacobs. “The pet is a member of the family and an interesting vertical in the Internet of Things.”
