Veterinary software: which startup is ahead?
In our Pet Tech market deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
Digitail is ahead in veterinary software today, with Instinct Science close enough to turn the market into a real two-company race.
The most important dividing line is not funding or headline user reach. It is whether the software can replace the clinic’s central system or merely improve one part of the workflow around it.
Digitail leads because it already combines records, scheduling, billing, inventory, payments, communication, client tools, and embedded AI in one live platform. That gives it more control over the daily clinic workflow than any specialist add-on.
Instinct has the strongest chance of taking first place. Its emergency and specialty roots, clinical content, prescribing tools, university relationships, and ScribbleVet acquisition create a clinical advantage that is much harder to copy than another booking or messaging feature.
Lupa is the fastest-rising full-platform challenger, but its 50-fold revenue growth is difficult to size without a disclosed starting point, ending point, or clinic count. The growth is real; the scale is still unclear.
Otto may touch more individual clinics than any of the full-platform startups, yet it usually sits on top of another company’s practice-management system. That gives it broad distribution without giving it full ownership of the medical and financial record.
VetRec has built the strongest recent enterprise case among independent veterinary AI scribes. Its hospital-group and university rollouts are more convincing than a large count of individual sign-ups, although basic documentation features are quickly becoming bundled and cheaper.
Customer numbers across this market are especially easy to misuse. A clinic, a hospital, a veterinarian, a pet owner, and a professional reached through clinical content are not interchangeable measures of adoption.
The biggest structural pressure is bundling. Digitail, Instinct, and Lupa are steadily absorbing communication, payments, AI notes, and client engagement into the main platform, which makes life harder for narrower products unless they stay clearly better.
The ranking is likely to change only if one of two things happens: Instinct proves broad primary-care adoption, or Lupa turns its product speed into a large disclosed installed base. Until then, Digitail has the best overall combination of adoption, product breadth, growth, and control of the clinic’s core workflow.
This market map, featured in our Pet Tech market deck, highlights top companies and startups in the pet tech market
Which veterinary software startups are we really comparing?
The real veterinary software startup race currently has six serious contenders: Digitail, Instinct Science, Lupa, Otto, VetRec, and PetsApp.
We include companies that sell working software to veterinary practices, remain independent enough to shape their own strategy, and disclose enough evidence for comparison. The group covers three businesses: complete practice-management platforms, client-engagement software, and AI clinical assistants.
Digitail, Instinct, and Lupa want to become the main software running the clinic. Otto and PetsApp generally connect to an existing practice-management system and improve communication, booking, payments, and follow-up. VetRec concentrates on documentation and other AI-assisted clinical tasks.
We leave IDEXX, Covetrus, ezyVet, and Provet Cloud outside the ranking because they belong to larger established businesses. Vetspire and Rhapsody remain important products, although their acquisitions by Thrive Pet Healthcare and Chewy mean they no longer compete as independent startups. ScribbleVet is counted through Instinct following its acquisition in early 2026.
Shepherd also deserves a mention. It is a credible cloud practice-management system and absorbed Hippo Manager’s customers in 2025. We leave it outside the ranking because its current installed base, funding history, and growth figures are too opaque for a fair comparison.
| Startup | What it sells | Cumulative funding |
|---|---|---|
| Digitail | Full cloud practice-management platform with records, payments, inventory, client tools, and built-in AI | More than $37 million |
| Instinct Science | Practice-management and clinical-workflow software for general, emergency, specialty, and teaching hospitals | At least $3.9 million publicly recorded; later growth investment undisclosed |
| Lupa | AI-native practice-management system covering clinical, financial, and client workflows | $25 million |
| Otto | Communication, booking, payments, memberships, phones, and AI tools connected to existing systems | About $50.3 million reported |
| VetRec | Veterinary AI assistant focused on documentation and workflow automation | Undisclosed; backed by Y Combinator |
| PetsApp | Communication, booking, payments, wellness plans, CRM, and AI documentation | About $4.4 million |
Is Digitail already the clear veterinary software leader?
Digitail is ahead overall today, although Instinct has closed enough of the gap to create a real top-two race.
Digitail entered the latest period with the stronger broad-market position. It already had a complete cloud platform, thousands of active veterinary users, a pet-owner application, and a growing collection of AI tools inside the main system. Its latest financing followed a year in which its customer base more than doubled.
Instinct has made the more aggressive strategic moves lately. It launched a full practice-management product for general practices in late 2025, bought ScribbleVet soon afterward, integrated Mixlab pharmacy ordering, and began releasing AI features that use patient information and trusted veterinary references during care.
Instinct previously looked mainly like the specialist leader for emergency and referral hospitals. It can now pursue general practices with a product combining medical records, payments, analytics, prescribing, AI notes, Plumb’s drug information, and clinical decision support.
Digitail still has the stronger proof of full-platform adoption across ordinary practices. Instinct has a richer clinical stack and wider professional reach through Plumb’s, Clinician’s Brief, Standards of Care, and ScribbleVet. Digitail remains first, but not by much.
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 startup is really becoming the clinic’s main software?
Digitail currently has the strongest claim to becoming the everyday operating system for independent veterinary clinics, while Instinct is better suited to complex hospitals.
The central platform controls medical records, appointments, invoices, inventory, payments, lab results, staff workflows, and much of the client relationship. Replacing it can affect almost every employee in a practice.
Digitail already brings those jobs together. Its platform covers clinical records, scheduling, hospitalization, billing, stock, wellness plans, laboratory integrations, payment processing, client communication, and a pet-owner app. Its AI tools work inside the same environment, so notes and summaries can use information already stored in the patient record.
Its deployment record is also the broadest. Practices have migrated records, launched the system quickly, and expanded into payments, inventory, booking, and client applications. Recent releases added supplier ordering, staff-hour tracking, wellness-plan enrollment, task assignment, and clinical dictation from an Apple Watch.
Instinct covers nearly the same territory but becomes more convincing as clinical complexity rises. Its software handles inpatient treatment plans, hour-by-hour tasks, anesthesia records, prescribing, charge capture, pharmacy connections, and communication across large teams.
Lupa has built records, booking, billing, payments, communication, inventory, hospitalization, staff management, analytics, and AI documentation in a short period. Early migrations have gone well, but the company has not yet shown the same volume of large or repeated deployments.
Otto, VetRec, and PetsApp are easier to introduce because they leave the existing core system in place. They still require another product underneath them to manage the complete medical and financial record.
| Startup | Can replace the main clinic system? | Best current fit | Deployment evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digitail | Yes | Independent general practices, mobile vets, new clinics, and growing groups | Broad customer base, rapid go-lives, and repeated multi-location examples |
| Instinct Science | Yes | Emergency, specialty, urgent-care, university, and advanced general practices | Proven in complex hospitals and expanding into primary care |
| Lupa | Yes | Modern independent practices and smaller groups | Smooth early migrations, but limited disclosed large-group evidence |
| Otto | Usually no | Clinics keeping their current system while improving front-desk workflows | More than 5,000 clinic relationships and broad integrations |
| VetRec | No | Practices adding AI documentation without changing their main system | Major hospital-group and university rollouts |
| PetsApp | Usually no | Practices focused on communication, booking, and client retention | More than 1,000 veterinary professionals reported |
Who really has the most veterinary software customers?
Digitail has the clearest proof of broad commercial adoption among full veterinary software platforms, although the companies report customer scale in incompatible ways.
Digitail says it supports around 10,000 veterinarians and three million pet owners. It also reported that its customer base more than doubled during the previous 12 months. Those figures come from the company, but they describe a much larger footprint than a group of pilots or launch customers.
Its customer stories add context. One clinic moved from a demonstration to live operation in roughly a week. A nine-location group standardized its practices on the system. Other clinics began receiving appointments through the client app, added locations, or increased the number of patients they could manage.
Otto may reach more separate clinics through its communication layer. It reports more than 5,000 practices, though those clinics usually rely on another company for the main medical record.
Instinct reports more than 360,000 veterinary professionals across its wider portfolio, including Plumb’s, Clinician’s Brief, Standards of Care, and other products. That figure cannot be treated as an EMR customer count. Its older disclosure of more than 350 hospitals is more useful, but it is no longer current.
Lupa reports fast revenue growth without disclosing a total number of paying practices. VetRec emphasizes hospital networks, visits, and university deployments. PetsApp reports more than 1,000 veterinary professionals.
We therefore give more weight to live migrations, named rollouts, repeat use, and customer expansion than to one headline number. By that standard, Digitail leads broad platform adoption, Otto leads clinic reach in its narrower category, and Instinct has the most demanding institutional customers.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, shows annual VC investment in pet tech startups
Which veterinary software startup is growing fastest now?
Lupa is growing fastest in percentage terms, while Digitail has delivered the more convincing expansion from an already meaningful base.
Lupa reported 50-fold revenue growth between its seed round and its $20 million Series A. The rounds came only five months apart, bringing total funding to $25 million. That speed suggests the business changed substantially during the period.
The company did not disclose its starting revenue, ending revenue, or number of paying clinics. A 50-fold increase can describe very different businesses, so the figure shows acceleration without revealing Lupa’s current scale.
Digitail’s growth is easier to judge. Its customer base more than doubled while the platform was already supporting thousands of veterinarians. Expanding from that base requires more migrations, integrations, training, and customer support than multiplying an early revenue figure.
VetRec has also moved beyond individual subscribers by adding hospital groups, teaching hospitals, and university programs. Enterprise rollouts take longer to win, but they can expand across dozens of locations.
Lupa is the fastest-moving young company. Digitail has the strongest growth from scale. VetRec is showing the clearest move from individual use into large organizations.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
Who leads veterinary software for emergency and specialty hospitals?
Instinct owns the emergency and specialty veterinary software segment today.
Its software was built around hospital medicine. It manages treatment sheets, inpatient monitoring, prescribing, anesthesia, charge capture, staff handovers, and clinical decision support.
The company had already reported more than 350 hospitals and adoption across nearly half of American veterinary schools several years ago. That figure is old, but later developments have strengthened its hospital product.
Its Mixlab integration places prescription ordering and fulfillment updates inside the patient workflow. Instinct said use grew week after week during beta testing. It has also introduced clinical AI features and new safeguards that use medical information during care.
VetRec has become an important part of the emergency-hospital software stack, especially for documentation. Its rollout with VEG followed a six-month test covering more than 100,000 patient visits. VetRec can handle emergency volume, but it remains one part of the workflow. Instinct can manage treatment, records, medication, billing, and discharge.
Digitail and Lupa both offer hospital features. Neither has matched Instinct’s depth of named emergency, referral, and university customers.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, looks at Tractive’s strategy in pet tech
Who owns veterinary client communication and online booking?
Otto still leads veterinary client communication and online booking.
The company says more than 5,000 clinics use its platform for messaging, booking, reminders, forms, payments, memberships, phone workflows, and AI tools. Otto connects with major practice-management systems, allowing clinics to improve the client experience without replacing their central software.
Its 2025 client-engagement report showed direct online bookings per clinic rising by 64% between January and August, from an average of 28 to 50. New clients generated 23% of those bookings. Text reminders received a 33% response rate, compared with less than 1% for email.
The figures come from Otto’s own platform data, but they cover thousands of clinics and show how differently clients respond to mobile booking and messaging.
OttoPilot has since pushed the product further into operations. It analyzes practice data, answers business questions, recommends outreach campaigns, and is beginning to automate appointment-confirmation conversations.
PetsApp offers a similar mix of messaging, booking, video, payments, wellness plans, CRM, and AI documentation, but its reported reach remains much smaller. Digitail, Instinct, and Lupa pose the bigger long-term threat because they increasingly include these features inside the main platform.
Which veterinary AI scribe is actually ahead?
VetRec is the strongest independent veterinary AI scribe today, although no company has publicly proved that its AI is the most accurate.
VetRec has built the strongest collection of recent enterprise deployments. VEG expanded the product across its hospitals after testing it for six months and more than 100,000 patient visits. Bond Vet adopted it across more than 55 locations. Veterinary Innovative Partners introduced it across nearly 70 hospitals, while Ethos Veterinary Health also selected the company.
Universities provide another route into the market. Cornell gave its veterinary college access to VetRec, Texas A&M introduced it at its teaching hospital, and NC State recently marked a full year of use.
Instinct now owns ScribbleVet, which had already reached thousands of veterinarians. The pairing could become more powerful because an AI note can connect with the medical record, Plumb’s drug information, treatment plans, and hospital workflows.
Otto says thousands of veterinarians use its scribe, and partnerships with Hill’s Pet Nutrition and The Veterinary Cooperative have made it free to more clinics. That distribution pressure will make basic AI notes harder to sell as a premium standalone product.
Quality remains the awkward part. Vendors mainly publish time saved, using different definitions and settings. Independent research has shown large performance differences between veterinary summarization products, but it has not identified a clear winner among these startups.
We can rank adoption and workflow depth. VetRec leads independent enterprise deployment, Instinct has the strongest integration opportunity, and Otto has the broadest low-cost distribution.
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
Which veterinary software gives clinics the best value?
Digitail offers the strongest all-in-one value for clinics replacing several disconnected tools, while Otto has the clearest low-disruption value for practices keeping their existing system.
Digitail can replace separate products for records, booking, invoices, payments, stock, communication, wellness plans, and parts of AI documentation. The economic case becomes stronger when a clinic is already paying for several add-ons.
Its customer examples connect the software with higher patient capacity, app-based booking, and better productivity across multiple locations. These are selected case studies, so the repeated pattern matters more than any single percentage.
Lupa makes a similar argument. It says its platform replaces more than seven products and can generate twice the return of a fragmented stack. Madra estimated that automated supplier-price updates alone saved three to five hours each week. The broader return claim still needs proof across more customers.
Otto’s value comes from leaving the main system untouched. Its booking data suggests clinics can recover appointments and attract new clients without a full migration. It also says automated lapsed-client campaigns recover an average of $800 to $900 per month.
VetRec must justify its price against cheaper bundled scribes. It can do that through better specialty templates, integrations, enterprise support, or larger time savings.
Instinct may create the most value inside large hospitals through charge capture, prescribing safety, and fewer workflow errors. Its private pricing makes that difficult to compare directly.
Who has won the strongest veterinary customers?
Instinct has the strongest institutional customers, while VetRec has the best recent examples of pilots becoming large deployments.
Instinct’s teaching hospitals, emergency centers, and referral practices put its software into difficult environments. These organizations have larger teams, longer patient stays, complex medication workflows, and more ways for poor software to cause problems.
Its university exposure is especially useful. Veterinary schools influence how graduates expect records, prescribing tools, and decision-support software to work. Plumb’s and Clinician’s Brief also give Instinct a relationship with veterinarians before an employer buys the full platform.
VetRec’s VEG rollout followed a long pilot rather than a vague partnership announcement. NC State continued using the product for a full year, while Bond Vet, Veterinary Innovative Partners, Ethos, Cornell, and Texas A&M show that the company can repeat enterprise sales.
Digitail’s customer list is less prestigious but more representative of the wider clinic market. It includes independent practices, mobile veterinarians, multi-site groups, new clinics, and practices replacing established software.
Otto’s clinic count is large, and its Hill’s and Veterinary Cooperative partnerships expand distribution. We still give more weight to clinics choosing and paying for the product than to clinics receiving free access through a sponsor.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, compares the main business model options for pet GPS wearable companies
Which veterinary software advantage is hardest to copy?
Instinct has the hardest advantage to reproduce because it combines clinical software, trusted veterinary content, specialist customers, and AI documentation.
A rival can build online booking or connect a language model to an audio recorder. Recreating Plumb’s drug information, Clinician’s Brief, Standards of Care, hospital treatment workflows, and long-standing university and referral relationships would take much longer.
Instinct can place drug guidance, clinical checks, documentation, prescribing, and patient information inside the same workflow. Its reach of more than 360,000 veterinary professionals across all products also gives it a large audience for launching new software.
Digitail’s protection comes from workflow depth. Once a clinic runs records, payments, inventory, communication, and its pet-owner app through one platform, moving away becomes painful. The moat grows as more processes and integrations move into the system.
Lupa’s present edge is speed. It has built a broad product quickly, but speed becomes durable only when it produces customer scale, integrations, proprietary data, and switching costs.
Otto and PetsApp face greater bundling pressure because full practice platforms increasingly include communication, booking, payments, and basic AI tools.
VetRec’s transcription technology will become easier to reproduce. Its strongest protection comes from specialty templates, enterprise implementation work, university adoption, and integrations.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
Who has the strongest momentum right now?
Lupa and VetRec are moving fastest now, while Instinct has made the most consequential strategic moves.
Lupa’s momentum comes from fundraising speed, product expansion, and early migration stories. Its Series A followed the seed round by only five months. The company has since introduced products for general practice, hospitals, farm veterinarians, multi-site groups, payments, notes, and integrations.
Some enterprise and equine capabilities remain under development. Lupa is moving quickly, although the product is still being completed around the edges.
VetRec’s momentum is visible in deployments. VEG expanded use after a six-month evaluation involving more than 100,000 visits. NC State reached a one-year milestone, and the company continued adding hospital groups and educational partners.
Instinct has reshaped the market it can address. Its move into primary care and acquisition of ScribbleVet opened two new growth paths. Pharmacy integration, automation releases, clinical AI tools, and safety features are now connecting those products.
Digitail’s pace has been steadier. Its recent releases filled practical gaps in inventory, supplier ordering, staff administration, wellness plans, client enrollment, and mobile documentation.
Otto is also moving deeper into operations through automated confirmations, client summaries, and AI business recommendations.
| Startup | Most important recent development | Momentum judgment |
|---|---|---|
| Lupa | Rapid funding, broad product expansion, and first migration evidence | Fastest young full-platform challenger |
| VetRec | Large hospital and university rollouts following real-world trials | Strongest recent commercial conversion |
| Instinct Science | Primary-care launch, ScribbleVet acquisition, and connected clinical AI | Most consequential strategic expansion |
| Digitail | Frequent operational releases after a major growth round | Strong, steady execution from the current leader |
| Otto | OttoPilot, conversational confirmations, and AI client summaries | Moving deeper into clinic operations |
| PetsApp | Continued expansion of communication, CRM, and AI features | Active, though falling behind larger rivals |
This chart, featured in our Pet Tech market deck, illustrates revenue distribution by customer segment in the pet tech market
Which veterinary software startup is actually ahead?
Digitail is still number one, but the market now looks like a close top two followed by three strong specialists and one smaller contender.
Digitail wins because it has already joined the pieces that matter most: a complete cloud platform, broad adoption, embedded AI, client-facing tools, integrations, and recent growth. Its disclosed full-platform user base remains the largest among the independent startups we can compare properly.
Instinct ranks a close second. Its emergency and specialty position is stronger, its clinical resources are harder to copy, and its move into general practice greatly expands the market it can pursue. It remains behind Digitail because the company has not disclosed how widely its new primary-care platform is being adopted.
Lupa is third. It has built the most credible new full-platform challenge and is expanding unusually quickly. Its ranking will rise when customer and revenue figures catch up with its product breadth.
Otto sits fourth overall and first in client engagement. It reaches thousands of clinics and continues pushing into AI-driven business workflows. Its reliance on another core system limits how much of the clinic it controls.
VetRec ranks fifth overall and first among independent veterinary AI scribes. Its customer quality and enterprise momentum are stronger than its position suggests, but the product remains narrower than a complete platform.
PetsApp comes sixth. It offers a useful client-engagement product with real adoption, though Otto has pulled away in scale and full-platform companies increasingly include the same features.
Instinct can move first if its general-practice launch produces broad adoption. Lupa can enter the top two by turning rapid growth into a large disclosed customer base. VetRec can climb if its assistant expands from documentation into deeper clinical intelligence.
For now, Digitail is ahead overall. Instinct is close enough to make that lead uncomfortable.
| Rank | Startup | Why it ranks here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Digitail | Best mix of full-platform adoption, breadth, growth, integrations, and ownership of the clinic’s core workflow |
| 2 | Instinct Science | Strongest clinical platform and moat, now expanding from hospitals into general practice |
| 3 | Lupa | Fastest-rising full-platform challenger, with excellent product speed and early migration results |
| 4 | Otto | Clear client-engagement leader with wide clinic distribution, though it usually remains an add-on |
| 5 | VetRec | Best independent AI-scribe deployments and enterprise momentum, within a narrower product category |
| 6 | PetsApp | Solid client-engagement suite with real adoption, but less scale and momentum than the leaders |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest Pet Tech market report.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis tests which independent veterinary software startup is actually ahead based on the strongest evidence available today. We compare ownership of the clinic’s core workflow, commercial adoption, customer quality, deployment depth, product breadth, growth, specialist leadership, defensibility, and recent execution.
We do not use funding as a shortcut for leadership. A large round can help a company build and sell faster, but it does not prove that clinics have migrated, staff use the product daily, or customers have expanded their deployments.
Customer figures are treated carefully because the companies measure different things. A practice, hospital, veterinarian, pet owner, software user, and professional reached through educational content each represents a different type of adoption. Where the metrics were not comparable, we gave more weight to live migrations, named rollouts, repeat use, and customer expansion.
We also separate full practice-management platforms from client-engagement products and AI clinical assistants. Digitail, Instinct, and Lupa can compete to run the clinic’s main medical and financial record. Otto, VetRec, and PetsApp can be valuable and widely used without replacing that central system.
Recent product launches, integrations, acquisitions, funding events, usage data, completed pilots, university deployments, and hospital-group rollouts were assessed point by point. We gave greater weight to software that had been selected, deployed, used, and expanded than to partnership announcements or broad product claims on their own.
The final ranking is not a mechanical average. It combines the most relevant evidence across every question in the analysis, while allowing a company to lead a specialist category without automatically ranking first overall.
Key sources include: Digitail’s Series B announcement and customer-growth figures, Digitail’s company profile and reported reach, Digitail’s Veterinary United deployment, Instinct’s ScribbleVet acquisition announcement, Instinct’s explanation of its general-practice expansion, Instinct and Mixlab’s prescription-workflow integration, Lupa’s Series A announcement and reported revenue growth, Otto’s client-engagement data, VetRec’s VEG pilot and rollout, Texas A&M’s VetRec deployment announcement, PetsApp’s product and adoption information, and Cornell’s work on veterinary AI evaluation and benchmarking.
This chart, included in our Pet Tech market deck, shows how pet telehealth app technology has evolved over time
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