Pet insurance: which startup is ahead?
In our Pet Tech market deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
Spot is the pet insurance startup leader today. It has the largest disclosed customer base, the fastest growth at meaningful scale, the broadest distribution network and enough claims volume to show that the operation is real.
Its lead is mostly a scale story. Spot has passed one million customers, roughly four times Lassie’s reported 250,000 pets and more than 16 times the latest disclosed figure from Dalma.
ManyPets is still the strongest insurer we can inspect properly. Its £232 million premium book, 70% UK loss ratio and first annual profit provide harder evidence of business quality than Spot’s privately held operating figures.
Lassie is the most credible challenger, not because it has raised the most money, but because its customer growth, European expansion, app engagement and claims automation are moving together. The weak spot is that most of those numbers still come from the company or its investors.
The wider market is helping every contender, but pricing is doing part of the work. North American premiums grew faster than insured-pet counts, implying roughly 6% more premium collected per pet before changes in coverage mix.
Spot’s distribution advantage may be harder to copy than its policy design. AAA, Sam’s Club and employer channels place the product inside existing customer relationships instead of forcing Spot to win every buyer through search advertising.
Claims performance separates the serious operators from the polished apps. Spot processes more than 16,000 claims a month in a little over three days on average, ManyPets handled 134,000 claims through its Vet Portal, and Lassie says most German claims can now be completed automatically in minutes.
Napo looks unusually capital-efficient. It reached roughly £30 million in annual premiums on about £30 million of disclosed funding, although premium volume is not the same thing as revenue or profit.
Product differentiation is real but still secondary to insurance execution. Lassie’s prevention model creates unusually frequent engagement, Napo offers strong UK coverage and direct vet payment, and Spot has broad U.S. benefits, but none of those features compensates for weak pricing or claims control.
The ranking is clear enough: Spot leads overall, ManyPets has the best proven insurance economics, and Lassie has the strongest chance of changing the order. Spot’s lack of financial transparency remains the main reason the lead is convincing rather than unassailable.
Which pet insurance startups are actually in the race?
The real pet insurance startup field currently contains seven serious names: Spot, ManyPets, Lassie, Napo, Dalma, Wagmo and Kanguro.
We include startup-built companies that sell or distribute their own pet insurance product and have shown real commercial activity. Spot remains in the comparison even though Independence Pet Holdings acquired a majority interest in 2024. Its brand, product and customer-growth engine were built as a startup. ManyPets has also grown beyond the usual startup stage, but it remains one of the companies that shaped modern digital pet insurance.
We exclude public companies such as Trupanion and Lemonade, traditional insurers such as MetLife and Nationwide, and older brands such as Pets Best. Comparison websites such as Pawlicy Advisor belong to another category. Pumpkin, Figo and Embrace are also outside the core ranking because larger insurance groups now control them.
Private-company disclosure remains uneven. ManyPets publishes detailed financial accounts, while Spot does not disclose its funding, loss ratio or profit. Lassie has released fresh customer and revenue figures, but those numbers come from the company. Napo, Dalma, Wagmo and Kanguro disclose only parts of their performance.
| Startup | What it does | Cumulative funding |
|---|---|---|
| Spot | U.S. digital pet insurance sold directly, through employers and through large partners | Not publicly disclosed; majority interest acquired in 2024 |
| ManyPets | Digital pet insurer now focused mainly on the UK | About $480 million |
| Lassie | Prevention-led pet insurer operating in Sweden, Germany and France | About $120 million |
| Napo | UK digital lifetime pet insurance provider | About £30 million |
| Dalma | App-based pet insurer operating in France and Germany | More than €50 million |
| Wagmo | U.S. pet insurance, wellness plans and employee benefits | About $24.5 million |
| Kanguro | Bilingual U.S. pet insurance MGA that also sells renters insurance | Not publicly disclosed |
Is Spot already the clear pet insurance startup leader?
Spot is the clearest overall pet insurance startup leader today. ManyPets and Lassie still beat it on important parts of the comparison.
The latest North American Pet Health Insurance Association report counted 7.6 million insured pets and $6.2 billion in gross written premiums. Insured pets increased 12.4%, while premiums rose 19.4%. That implies an increase of roughly 6% in premium collected per pet before changes in coverage mix.
Pet insurance is growing quickly, but it remains far from mature. Only 4.27% of U.S. dogs and cats currently have coverage. The market also contains around 30 insurance companies and more than 20 additional white-label or co-branded products.
Spot has pulled ahead within that crowded field. It has crossed one million customers, while Lassie reports around 250,000 pets. ManyPets remains financially larger than Lassie, with £232 million in gross written premiums and its first annual profit, but it has stopped selling new U.S. policies and is no longer growing at Spot’s pace.
The market now has one commercial leader, two substantial challengers and a second group of smaller specialists. Spot leads overall, ManyPets has the strongest published insurance accounts, and Lassie is moving fastest in Europe.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
This market map, featured in our Pet Tech market deck, highlights top companies and startups in the pet tech market
Who insures the most pets today?
Spot currently covers more pets than any other startup-born challenger, and the gap is large enough to shape the whole ranking.
Spot has passed one million customers in the United States. Lassie now reports around 250,000 insured pets across Sweden, Germany and France. Spot is therefore roughly four times larger by customer count.
Napo’s last firm disclosure showed 60,000 covered pets, although later company descriptions said it was approaching 100,000. Dalma also reported around 60,000 pets after starting with just over 20,000 in 2022. Spot’s disclosed customer base is more than 16 times Dalma’s latest figure.
ManyPets is harder to place. It says it has sold nearly 800,000 new policies since 2017, but cumulative policy sales do not reveal how many customers remain active today. Its premium volume shows that it is still one of the largest companies in the group, yet we cannot compare its current policy count cleanly.
Customer numbers alone do not decide the ranking. They do show that Spot has reached a different size class from Napo, Dalma, Wagmo and Kanguro.
Who has built the healthiest pet insurance business?
ManyPets has built the healthiest insurance business we can inspect properly, with a large premium book, better claims costs and its first full-year profit.
Its latest annual report showed £232 million in gross written premiums and £62 million in revenue. The group earned a £6.25 million net profit after losing £33 million the previous year, an improvement of more than £39 million in twelve months.
The UK loss ratio fell from 78% to 70%. In simple terms, claims consumed 70 pence of every premium pound before operating expenses, down from 78 pence. An eight-point improvement across a business of this size can transform the whole company.
ManyPets achieved the turnaround through higher prices, tighter risk selection, claims automation and a move onto its own insurance platform. It also narrowed the business. Group premiums fell 3% as the company wound down its U.S. operation, while UK premiums remained broadly stable at £218 million.
ManyPets became a better insurer by abandoning part of its earlier international growth plan. Spot is adding customers much faster, but its loss ratio, retention and profit remain private. Until Spot shares those figures, ManyPets deserves first place for financial health.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
As this chart shows, and as featured in our Pet Tech market deck, search interest in pet cameras has risen sharply
Which pet insurance startup is growing fastest right now?
Spot is growing fastest at serious scale, while Kanguro has posted the biggest recent percentage increase from a much smaller starting point.
Spot ranked 233rd on the Inc. 5000 after reporting 1,656% revenue growth over three years. Revenue over that period became roughly 17.6 times larger. The company also estimated that it generated around 22% of all newly insured U.S. pets during 2024, far above its share of the total market at the start of that period.
Kanguro nearly doubled the premium written on its behalf by Cimarron Insurance Company. The figure rose from $4.4 million in 2024 to $8.6 million in 2025, an increase of about 95%. Impressive, yes, although its entire premium book remains small beside the leading companies.
Dalma grew from slightly more than 20,000 pets in 2022 to around 60,000 in 2025. Tripling in three years works out to approximately 44% annual growth. Napo also expanded quickly, but its latest public numbers do not provide a clean recent growth rate.
Lassie has the strongest European growth story. It now reports more than €84 million in annual recurring revenue across three countries, following an earlier period when it crossed €50 million in gross written premiums in less than four years.
ManyPets sits at the other end of the comparison. Its financial performance improved dramatically, but its premium volume is currently stable rather than accelerating.
Who got the most real business from the money raised?
Napo appears to have used venture funding most efficiently among the companies with public numbers, while Spot has created the most demand overall.
Napo has raised about £30 million and had already reached roughly £30 million in annual premiums. It produced around one pound of yearly premium volume for every pound of disclosed funding, although premiums are not revenue or profit. It also reached that point without an expensive retreat from several international markets.
Lassie has raised around $120 million after its latest $75 million Series C. Its reported annual recurring revenue has now moved above €84 million. That is a strong conversion of capital into business, especially because Lassie has already entered three different insurance markets.
Dalma has raised more than €50 million and covers around 60,000 pets. The company has created a real French and German customer base, but its published scale remains well below Lassie’s despite their funding totals being closer than their customer counts.
ManyPets is the most-funded company by far. Its latest premium book is large and profitable, yet roughly $480 million of capital did not produce the international leadership investors once expected. The company entered the United States, absorbed heavy losses and eventually stopped selling new policies there.
Spot cannot be judged fairly on capital efficiency because its cumulative funding has never been disclosed. Its strategic owner also provides insurance infrastructure that would be expensive for an independent startup to recreate.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, shows annual VC investment in pet tech startups
Who has the best way of finding pet insurance customers?
Spot has the strongest customer-acquisition machine because it reaches pet owners through several channels that do not depend on the same advertising budget.
The company sells directly online, works with employers and offers insurance through large membership organizations. Its AAA partnership gives members discounted access to Spot policies. Sam’s Club added Spot insurance alongside pharmacy discounts and pet medications, placing the product close to an existing pet-health purchase.
These partnerships do more than display a logo. AAA and Sam’s Club already have trusted relationships with millions of households. Spot can reach customers inside services they use, reducing its dependence on people actively searching for pet insurance.
Lassie has developed the most interesting European alternative. Lidl offers its insurance through the Lidl Plus rewards program, while Tractive connects activity tracking with rewards and discounts. Both partnerships fit Lassie’s prevention model and bring the product into everyday pet care.
Wagmo has focused on employee benefits. Its partnership with bswift gives employers on a platform serving more than 16 million people the option to offer Wagmo insurance, wellness plans and tele-veterinary care. The potential audience is huge, although Wagmo has not disclosed how many employees have enrolled.
Spot remains ahead because it has combined broad distribution with proven customer volume. Wagmo has access, Lassie has clever partnerships, and Spot has already turned multiple channels into scale.
Who pays pet insurance claims fastest when volume gets serious?
Spot has the strongest proof of fast claims at high volume, while Lassie currently shows the most aggressive automation.
Spot processes more than 16,000 claims each month, or over 190,000 on an annualized basis. Its average processing time is slightly above three days, with many customers receiving money within 48 hours. The company has reimbursed more than $450 million since launch.
Lassie says its system now handles 60% of German claims from start to finish in around six minutes. For straightforward treatments, customers upload a photograph of the bill and can receive a near-instant decision. The speed is impressive, although the company has not published the number of claims behind that percentage.
ManyPets provides a different kind of convenience. Its Vet Portal handled 134,000 claims during the latest financial year, allowing veterinary practices to deal directly with the insurer. Around 45% of claims can now be handled automatically, and 2,850 veterinary practices use the portal.
Napo says it accepts around 95% of claims and closes most within five days. That is a good customer promise, though its public reporting gives less detail on total claims volume.
Spot wins on proven speed at scale. Lassie could eventually pass it if the six-minute German process works across more countries and more complicated claims.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, looks at Tractive’s strategy in pet tech
Which pet insurance startup has the best product?
No single pet insurance product wins everywhere because Spot, ManyPets, Napo and Lassie solve different customer problems.
Spot offers one of the broadest standard U.S. policies. Coverage can include examination fees, behavioral treatment, alternative therapies, prescription food and end-of-life expenses. Customers can choose unlimited annual coverage, and some curable pre-existing conditions become eligible after 180 symptom-free days.
Its main weakness is payment. Customers usually pay the veterinarian first and wait for reimbursement. Pets Best and ASPCA, which sit outside this startup ranking, offer more developed direct-payment options.
ManyPets offers up to £20,000 of annual UK coverage through its Complete Care policy. It also has a plan for certain pre-existing conditions. Napo offers limits of up to £16,000, includes dental illness and behavioral support, and can pay participating veterinary practices directly.
Lassie stands apart through prevention. Its app contains more than 200 courses and guides, with rewards or insurance discounts for completing activities. Dalma concentrates on a simple mobile experience, unlimited veterinary advice and quick reimbursements in France and Germany.
| Startup | Strongest product advantage | Main drawback |
|---|---|---|
| Spot | Broad U.S. coverage and an unlimited annual-limit option | Customers usually pay the vet first |
| ManyPets | Up to £20,000 of annual UK cover and options for some pre-existing conditions | Mainly concentrated in the UK |
| Napo | Dental care, behavioral support and direct vet payment | Available only in the UK |
| Lassie | Prevention courses, rewards and frequent app use | Prevention savings remain unproven |
| Dalma | Simple app and unlimited veterinary advice | Lower disclosed scale and country-specific terms |
Is Lassie’s prevention model actually an advantage?
Lassie has created a genuine engagement advantage, although it still needs to prove that prevention improves the underlying insurance business.
Most insurance apps give customers little reason to return until something goes wrong. Lassie encourages owners to log activity, follow health guidance, complete courses and earn rewards. The company reports that 25% of customers use the app daily, compared with an industry benchmark of 8% to 9%.
Even allowing for company-reported definitions, a usage gap of nearly three times is hard to dismiss. Frequent engagement can make customers less likely to leave, create richer information about pets and give Lassie more opportunities to sell other services.
The prevention model also supports its partnerships. Tractive can connect activity data with rewards, while Lidl Plus can bring lower-priced insurance to a mass-market audience. Those relationships feel more natural around an active health program than around a basic reimbursement policy.
The missing evidence is financial. Lassie has not published separate retention rates for active users, a reduction in claims among customers completing courses or a group loss ratio. The app has clearly changed customer behavior. We still cannot say how much money that behavior saves.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, shows annual funding in pet tech startups
Who gives pet owners the best value today?
Spot currently offers the strongest broad value in the United States, while Napo and ManyPets provide deeper high-limit coverage in the UK.
A recent independent comparison placed Spot’s average cat policy at about $17 per month, the lowest among the providers tested. Its standard coverage also includes benefits that some rivals place behind add-ons, including examination fees, behavioral treatment and alternative therapies.
The exact quote will change with the pet’s breed, age, location, deductible and coverage limit. Spot becomes less price-competitive when customers choose unlimited coverage, but its cheaper plans still include a wide range of treatments.
Napo and ManyPets compete differently. Their highest UK limits reach £16,000 and £20,000 respectively. Customers facing expensive surgery or long-term illness may receive more useful protection from these plans even when the monthly price is higher.
Dalma advertises entry prices from around €15.99 per month in Germany and promotes policies without deductibles in France. Those offers are attractive, though comparing a starting price with a full policy can be misleading.
The latest industry data also shows why value is becoming harder to defend. Premiums grew 19.4% while insured-pet counts increased 12.4%, implying roughly 6% more premium per pet. Customers need clearer proof that price increases bring broader coverage, faster service or less money paid upfront.
Who can keep scaling without service falling apart?
ManyPets has the strongest proof that it can control a large insurance book, while Spot has shown that it can absorb rapid customer and claims growth.
ManyPets answers 93% of customer-service calls within 20 seconds, automates up to 45% of claims and has moved policy administration onto its own platform. Its UK loss ratio reached 70% while the group returned to profit. That combination says more about operating control than a large policy count alone.
Spot now handles more than 16,000 monthly claims without stretching its average processing time beyond a few days. Independence Pet Holdings supplies broader insurance, claims and underwriting infrastructure, which helps Spot expand without building every function itself.
Lassie has already reached roughly a quarter of a million pets across three countries. It has shown that its product can travel beyond Sweden, something Napo and Wagmo have yet to prove. However, Lassie does not publish a group loss ratio or profit figure, so the cost of that expansion remains unclear.
Napo and Dalma have both passed the experimental stage. Neither has yet shown that it can manage several hundred thousand active policies, enter multiple additional countries and keep claims performance stable.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, compares the main business model options for pet GPS wearable companies
What can these startups do that big insurers cannot copy quickly?
ManyPets has the deepest operating advantage, Spot owns the strongest distribution position and Lassie has the hardest customer-engagement model to reproduce.
ManyPets has years of claims history, its own policy platform and internal pricing tools. A competitor can build a polished website within months. Building reliable prices from a large book of real claims takes far longer, especially when veterinary inflation and breed-level risks keep changing.
Spot’s advantage comes from customer access. AAA, Sam’s Club and employer relationships would take a new entrant years to assemble. Its large customer base also gives it more data on acquisition, claims and renewal behavior.
Lassie’s app creates frequent interactions rather than one annual renewal and an occasional claim. If those interactions eventually produce better retention or lower claims, the company will own a much stronger advantage than a simple rewards program.
Large insurance groups remain a serious threat. Independence Pet Holdings bought a majority stake in Spot, while larger groups have acquired brands such as Pumpkin and Figo. These deals let startup brands keep their consumer identity while gaining capital, regulatory support and underwriting capacity.
Data, pricing history and trusted distribution should last longer than app design. ManyPets, Spot and Lassie have begun building those deeper advantages. Napo, Dalma, Wagmo and Kanguro still have more to prove.
Who has the strongest pet insurance momentum now?
Spot still has the strongest all-round momentum, but Lassie is now the challenger most likely to change the ranking.
Spot has appeared on the Inc. 5000 twice, recently added Sam’s Club as a national distribution partner and continues to expand its employer-benefits business. Customer growth, claims volume and distribution are all moving in the same direction.
Lassie has recently added three powerful ingredients at once: a $75 million funding round, reported annual recurring revenue above €84 million and claims automation that now handles most German claims within minutes. It also has a clear use for the new capital, with further European expansion and more investment in preventive health.
ManyPets has strong financial momentum. Turning a £33 million loss into a £6.25 million profit is the sharpest operating improvement in the group. Its customer and premium growth remain much quieter than Spot’s or Lassie’s.
Kanguro is still small, but it has widened the choices available under its accident-only policy in several states and continues to expand beyond pet insurance into renters insurance. Wagmo’s bswift deal could create growth, although enrollment numbers are still missing.
Spot is moving from strength to strength. Lassie is taking the bigger strategic leap, which makes it the company to watch most closely.
This chart, featured in our Pet Tech market deck, illustrates revenue distribution by customer segment in the pet tech market
How much can we trust the pet insurance startup numbers?
We can trust the order of the ranking more than every number behind it.
The North American market figures come from NAPHIA, whose survey represents approximately 99% of written pet insurance premiums in the United States and Canada. ManyPets provides the strongest company-level evidence because its formal accounts disclose premiums, revenue, profit, claims costs and operational performance.
Spot’s customer milestone fits with its high claims volume, cumulative reimbursements and repeated appearance among fast-growing private companies. Its profitability, retention and loss ratio remain hidden, so we have strong evidence of scale and weaker evidence of business quality.
Lassie’s customer, revenue, app-use and claims-automation figures come mainly from the company and its investors. They are specific enough to be useful, but they have not been tested through public financial accounts. Napo and Dalma publish customer and funding figures while revealing little about claims costs. Wagmo publishes large distribution opportunities without showing how many people buy a policy.
A rigid score out of 100 would create false precision. The available evidence can tell us who is ahead, where each company is strong and which gaps remain uncertain.
Which pet insurance startups are actually ahead?
Spot is ahead overall today because no other startup-born pet insurer matches its combination of customers, growth, claims volume and distribution.
Spot has crossed one million customers, roughly four times Lassie’s reported count and far above the latest figures from Napo or Dalma. Its 1,656% three-year revenue growth and large share of newly insured U.S. pets show that the lead is still expanding.
ManyPets ranks second. Its growth has slowed, but it operates the strongest insurance business we can verify. The company has reached profitability, improved its loss ratio and runs a premium book that remains substantially larger than those of the independent European challengers.
Lassie ranks third and has moved much closer to ManyPets. Fresh capital, more than €84 million in reported annual recurring revenue, rapid European expansion and advanced claims automation give it the best chance of changing the top three. It can pass ManyPets by sustaining its growth and publishing convincing loss-ratio and retention figures.
Napo takes fourth place because it has built a meaningful UK book with relatively little funding. Dalma follows with strong growth in France and Germany but less financial disclosure. Kanguro has real paid traction and nearly doubled written premiums from a small base. Wagmo’s employer-benefits route is promising, although we still lack evidence that broad platform access is turning into insurance policies.
Spot’s weak point is transparency. A poor loss ratio or expensive customer acquisition could narrow its advantage quickly. ManyPets needs to restart growth, while Lassie needs to show that prevention makes the insurance book better rather than simply making the app busier.
For now, Spot is the convincing overall leader, ManyPets is the strongest proven insurer, and Lassie is the most dangerous challenger.
| Rank | Startup | Why it holds this position |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spot | The largest customer base, rapid growth, high claims volume and the strongest mix of distribution channels |
| 2 | ManyPets | The best disclosed insurance economics, a large premium book and a return to profit, despite slower growth |
| 3 | Lassie | Fast European expansion, fresh capital, strong app engagement and increasingly automated claims |
| 4 | Napo | A substantial UK business built with far less funding than the leaders |
| 5 | Dalma | Strong pet-count growth in France and Germany, with limited disclosure on insurance economics |
| 6 | Kanguro | Nearly doubled written premiums and continues to broaden its U.S. offering |
| 7 | Wagmo | A distinctive employer-benefits strategy, but too little public evidence of paid insurance scale |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, shows how pet telehealth app technology has evolved over time
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis asks which pet insurance startup holds the strongest competitive position today. We compare the companies across commercial scale, current growth, insurance economics, capital efficiency, distribution, claims operations, product quality, customer engagement and recent momentum.
We include startup-built companies that sell or distribute their own pet insurance product and have shown real commercial activity. We exclude public insurers, traditional insurance groups, older incumbent brands, comparison websites and startup brands now fully controlled by larger insurance groups, except where the original startup business remains central to the comparison.
We prioritized measurable operating results over general market perception. Filed financial accounts, industry data, customer and policy figures, gross written premiums, loss ratios, claims volumes, processing times and specific partnership announcements carried the most weight. Company and investor disclosures were used when they provided the freshest evidence, but we treated them more cautiously when no comparable financial accounts or enrollment data were available.
No single metric determined the ranking. Customer growth carried more weight when it came with meaningful claims volume and proven distribution. Profitability mattered more when supported by loss-ratio improvement and operating performance. Product innovation mattered most when customers were demonstrably using it.
We did not convert the evidence into a rigid score out of 100. The metrics describe different parts of an insurance business and cannot be added together cleanly without creating false precision. In this analysis, being “ahead” means producing the strongest overall combination of scale, growth, insurance quality, distribution and evidence that the position can endure.
Key sources used for this analysis include NAPHIA’s North American industry data and its data methodology, ManyPets’ filed company accounts, Spot’s Inc. 5000 profile, Spot’s official newsroom, Sam’s Club’s announcement of its Spot partnership, Lassie’s operating disclosures, Napo’s product and claims information, Dalma’s company information, and Wagmo’s bswift partnership announcement.
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