Are you a cat or a dog person? To me, there can only be one true correct answer to this question—why not both! Both deserve our love and attention. Both deserve to be happy and healthy. Yet, we can’t deny there’s a clear dichotomy between cat people and dog people. 

What’s even more fascinating is how pet-care innovation skews so heavily towards canine needs and their owners. Despite cat ownership rising globally, and the average household income of cat owners being higher than that of dog owners, our feline friends are often overlooked in the pet world. This is why companies like Untamed that centre the unique needs of cats are so important to our evolving market.

Today’s story is not just about one ailing cat and his owner’s determination to save him, but also how cats everywhere can be better served with a little entrepreneurial attention. I sat down with CEO and co-founder of Untamed, Marco Pacifici, to learn more about their story.

A cat called Sian

Marco and his co-founders, CMO Ben Spicer and COO Lenny Cordell, had been wanting to start something entrepreneurial for a while, and free themselves from corporate life, but they weren’t quite sure where to start. They had multiple ideas in the beginning, but none captured their imaginations. And then in 2019, Ben’s cat, Sian, got sick. Really sick. 

“Ben’s cat Sian became really poorly with indigestion, so a vet nutritionist family friend of his suggested what many have suggested in the past; boil some chicken and simplify his diet”, Marco said. 

Ben continued to feed Sian steamed meat and saw a marked improvement in his digestion, skin and coat health. But if he wanted to feed his cat that way all of the time, there weren’t any viable options on the market. 

“That prompted us to do a little market research to understand what was being given to cats, understanding more about cats and piecing it all together. In many ways, the history of cat food has been dog food adapted into cat food”, Marco told me. 

Given the rise of nutrition as preventative medicine in the human world, why couldn’t this also be applied to our beloved cats? And with that kernel of truth guiding them, Marco, Ben, and Lenny joined forces to create Untamed.

Untamed is born

The premise of Untamed was gold: simple, human-grade, yet nutritionally complete, cat food—with a sprinkle of complimentary recipes as an extra treat for felines. 

Marco said, “The core principle of Untamed is high-meat content food. No nasties, no fillers, no hidden things. Things that we feel should not be in cat food”.

After a 2020 launch, the brand started with home-cooked recipes and bootstrapped funding from the founders during the first year. Following a successful Series A funding round with a small group of passionate angel investors, Untamed soon became a small company, creating shelf-stable tins and operating a direct-to-consumer subscription model. Word began to spread about the quality and high palatability of Untamed’s product—two things that are famously difficult to balance when it comes to cats, leading to an impressive 4.7 score on Trustpilot. But of course, a high-quality product with premium ingredients also requires a premium price point. So part of the journey for Untamed has been finding the elusive product-market fit.

“I think the most important thing is we also need to understand our customers. Our customers are 30 to 45-year-old women. These are women who are heads of the family or the heart of the family—the centre of it—and tend to control the majority of spending in the household”, Marco said.

Being in this age group and a cat owner myself, I can attest to how spot-on the Untamed brand is for appealing to a more feminine, millennial and cat-adoring audience. For the purposes of this piece, I also ordered some Untamed for my cat, Finn, who practically licked the plate clean (pictured below).

With a strong brand ethos in place, a good product and a passionate founding team, surely the only way was up, right? Marco was honest that growing a cat brand in today’s pet care market is not without its challenges.

Cats are not small dogs

“Cats are not small dogs”, seems like an intuitive statement, and yet so much of the pet industry doesn’t reflect this simple truth. 

Of course, in Untamed’s case, it was a period of learning about the specific nutritional needs of our cats.

“I think the biggest challenge in creating cat food is palatability. We think it’s because they have such a sensitive system that they really must care about the food that goes in them”, said Marco.

Beyond cats being notoriously fussy about the taste, texture and even the smell of their food, their sensitive systems require more attention than the industry at large normally gives them.

Marco gave me a glimpse of the complexities of cat nutrition. A short digestive tract and small stomach make long vegetable proteins nigh on impossible for felines to digest. As experts, like the famous Jackson Galaxy, continue to remind us, cats are obligate carnivores, so high-meat content is a must for a healthy, happy kitty. 

Of course, building the perfect product was just one piece of the puzzle. What about finding the right people to power it? And the investment to scale it? 

It shocked me to learn that sourcing talented cat people was difficult, especially in the beginning. But given the industry’s overall skew towards dogs, this made more sense. 

Marco made an interesting observation and pointed out, “I just think to graduate a company from a product to a company or to a brand, you need people, you need culture, you need passion. Getting the right people, getting those people on board and aligned in your vision, are probably the hardest things. But also super important”.

Marco also expressed how finding experts—veterinarians and nutritionists—that align with brand values can be tricky too. 

“Our recipes are all signed off by vets, but finding vet nutritionists has been very difficult as very few people specialise in this area of study (cat nutrition). We’re actively considering bringing on a long-term vet partner”, said Marco.

When it comes to funding, we all know how tricky finding investment can be for pet startups. CEO Marco Pacifici has a background in investment banking, so he knows the lay of the land better than most. And yet, he expressed how tricky the funding road has been for Untamed. 

“Finding money in the beginning was hard, but I don't know if I ascribe that to the market, or just being, you know, COVID times”. 

Fortunately, the founding team secured a £10 million Series B round in April 2025, which marks a key milestone in the brand’s evolution.

What’s next for Untamed?

The first step to Untamed’s evolution has been a refreshed brand. Though the Untamed cheeky, feminine tone has served them well to this point, they are taking a creative risk with their next phase. When I mentioned that I consider my cat, Finn, to be “a tiny tiger that happens to live in my house”, this resonated with Marco as part of the brand’s redirection. 

He said, “We're trying to really embody the values of cats: sophistication, self respect and being a predator at heart. You know, the kernel of truth behind all this in our minds is that, unlike dogs, cats have remained untamed, hence the name. So yeah, the tone is evolving. We're learning to be bolder with some things”.

International expansion is on the cards too. The UK is a prime market for cat food, with some estimates suggesting that 29% of UK households have at least one cat. So there is still plenty of market opportunity here, but fortunately for us overseas, breaking into the EU market is in the pipeline.

And for the industry at large? Marco believes that we could do better by cats. 

“When people think of pets, people think of dogs. Nothing has really changed there. Dog startups are just easier to get started. It's easier to get unit economics working, but it's also harder to get scale. It's still a dog-first industry”.

Solidarity with cat people is something Marco feels is still lacking, and he wished that there was a better way for cat lovers to convene beyond the sharing of funny cat memes. 

“I think cat owners tend to be more introverted. With dogs, it’s so easy to find other dog people. I wonder if there could be a way to have cat parents find each other. You know, that could be very interesting”, he laughed. 

It’s fair to say that creating a brand like Untamed in the middle of a pandemic takes guts. So it was no surprise that CEO Marco Pacifici’s parting message to aspiring pet care founders is to soldier through rejection. 

“Do the craziest idea you have. You're in control. It's your journey, so don't give up”.

And on behalf of cat lovers, we are glad for Ben, Lenny and Marco’s determination, during these trying five years, to bring a brand like Untamed to the fore. 

The story of Untamed proves that even in a dog-first world, there’s room for cat-led innovation, if you care deeply enough to keep going.

As Marco put it: “It’s your fate. You just have to try and learn and improve”.

We’re glad they did.