At Unleashed by Purina, our mission is straightforward: to be the partner of choice for cutting-edge pet tech startups. The Class of 2026 raised the bar.
This year's cohort of six startups brought global reach, with teams from across Europe, Asia and Latin America, and a breadth of technology to match. From preventative pet insurance to breeder management, across both B2B and B2C channels, the range of innovation on show reflects the diversity of today's pet care landscape.
From February, each startup was paired with a team of Purina Unleashed Champs (industry or regional experts) who helped the team define their business model, draw on market research and build a strategy for ongoing collaboration with Purina. The programme is never one-size-fits-all. We shape it around what each team needs.
For another year, we are genuinely proud of what this cohort has built.
Celebrating the Class of 2026
In the blink of an eye, we reached mid-June, which marks the end of our acceleration programme. We gathered from around the globe, both virtually and in person, to celebrate the wins of this innovative group of startups.
Here are the highlights:
Petalife
Petalife is a pet AI startup that helps owners understand their pet’s health through everyday moments. With just a photo or short video, they can track key health signals from stools, urine, vomit and movement.
Their technology has a 93% accuracy rate and can detect over 60 health-related conditions. Before joining the Unleashed by Purina programme, they had over 10,000 followers and an organic monthly reach of 51,000.
During their 20 weeks, Petalife focused on real-life validation and using Purina’s knowledge base to hone their technology.
CEO and Co-founder, Eugene Siu, said “When we first joined Unleashed, Petalife was a stool tracker looking for users. Today, we see Petalife as a bridge between the pet owner, health insights, clinics and even nutrition brands like Purina”.
Top achievements:
- Piloted a 7-day vet-to-home protocol to support pet owners beyond the consultation room
- Created a successful DTC funnel with a conversion rate of 4%
- Gained invaluable insights into their consumers
Lassie
Sweden-based Lassie is a preventive pet insurance company that combines digital coverage with proactive care, therefore helping pet parents keep their cats and dogs healthier for longer.
Lassie is one of the fastest growing pet companies in Europe with a €100million ARR and over 300,000 policies across three markets.
They spent their 20 week programme with us developing their in-app features to make preventative pet care even more effortless for pet parents.
Carl-Johan Nilsson, Country Manager Sweden and VP of Global Revenue said, “Our results show that our customers find it valuable to receive recommendations from us, which speaks to not only the power of Lassie, but the entire pet insurance vertical”.
Top achievements:
- Gained valuable market data on real-life customers using surveys
- Built a guided nutrition pilot within the Lassie app
- Engaged ~35% of users with the new assessment feature
Petleo
Petleo is a Germany-based digital pet‑health platform company, optimising veterinary workflows with purpose-built digital tools. Their novel platform provides online appointment booking, pet health records and a pet owner app that helps vets and pet parents communicate.
Over 1,200 vets are using Petleo with over 800,000 registered pets.
For their 20 weeks, they further developed their platform to meet the needs of vets and their patients.
Magnus Kirschstein, Head of Marketing and Sales at Petleo said, “One vet literally told us that we were waiting for a better system to recommend food. Give us a better system and we’ll use it. So it’s clear that there is an opportunity here”.
Top achievements:
- Gained usable data on how vets think and work
- Validated a clear AI recommendation pathway through vets for nutrition products with a 30% conversion rate
- Developed a frictionless plugin that is compatible with all PMS systems
Psinder
Poland-based mobile dog-adoption platform, Psinder, is on a mission to support responsible adoption and give shelters the visibility they deserve.
They came to the programme with great traction already, with 70 partner shelters, over 10,000 users and a reach of over 750,000 per month.
Their goal, for their programme with Unleashed, was to build an ecosystem that would support adopters, educate them about responsible dog ownership and support them in the whole journey.
CTO, Kamil Tarczynski said, “We needed to have a partner that would help us fulfill the mission. Purina has great products, experience, scale and resources. We bring access to a GenZ audience through a new channel: our app. So we knew we could create something meaningful together”.
Top achievements:
- 63% conversion of opt-in marketing funnel
- Over 1,300 leads generated in 20 weeks
- Validated a sustainable business model with international partnerships in the works
SistemaPET
Brazil-based SistemaPET is a management platform designed specifically for professional pet breeders who need structure, control and reliability in their breeding operations.
Collaborating with Purina, SistemaPET aimed to develop their platform to be even more useful to breeders.
Eduardo Antunes, CEO and founder said, “To embrace this opportunity, we created the Purina Breeders Club in the SistemaPET platform and invited a group of breeders to participate in this project”.
Top achievements:
- Developed a seamless cashback reward system within the SistemaPET app
- Used real-life user data to create refined audience segments
- High conversion rates for breeders recommending Purina products
AI FOR PET
Korea-based AI FOR PET develops TTCARE, an innovative AI model that accounts for skin, eyes, teeth and gait analysis to support veterinary diagnosis.
Their 20 week programme focused on developing a nutrition recommendation programme within their models, as this is often overlooked in veterinary consultations in Korea.
Ronnie Hyun, Vice President and CSO said, “Pet parents trust veterinarians but only 22% of vets include nutrition recommendations in their conversations today. That’s why during our programme, we focused on seeing if real-time health insights and communication could activate nutrition recommendations at the point of care”.
Top achievements:
- Validated a scalable model
- Built a successful real-time nutrition recommendation feature within their TTCARE app
- Achieved a 10% conversion rate for vet clinic sales funnel
Championing pet tech innovation
Hubert Wieser, CEO of Nestlé Purina AOA said, “Technology is at the heart of the pet-human relationship to various degrees, so it’s great to see Unleashed focusing on that piece”.
And ultimately, these six graduates showed just how technology can be harnessed to create a safer, healthier and happier world for pets.
But, as always, this is just the beginning. We continue to champion and support our startups well after the programme has wrapped.
As Rafael Lopez, CEO of Nestlé Purina Europe said, “We don’t see it as the final day; we see it as the launch pad”.
We’re excited to continue working with growth-stage pet startups to help them reach their full potential.
A special thanks to the Purina Unleashed Champs who work hard to help our startups achieve their goals.
If you want to stay up-to-date with the latest here at Unleashed, or apply to be part of the next cohort, subscribe to our email newsletter.
See you in 2027!