News

Affordable and Sustainable Pet Care Initiative Launched

Social enterprise Animal Trust launches £2 million crowdfunding campaign

A veterinary social enterprise is seeking to raise £2 million of investment crowdfunding to help grow its services in England and Wales. Animal Trust, which is set up as a community interest company, has launched its new bond offer on the Triodos Crowdfunding platform.

Animal Trust’s mission is to make good veterinary treatment more affordable and accessible for pet owners earning the Real Living Wage. In line with this, the social enterprise seeks to open sites in areas where the available veterinary services are too expensive for local residents. It targets locations that are either within, or accessible to, lower earning individuals and families and currently operates across Cheshire, North Wales, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Shropshire and Yorkshire.

Animal Trust’s priority is the health and care of the animals that they see. As a community interest company, it reinvests the majority of its profits back into the business. This allows Animal Trust to provide more comprehensive veterinary care for pets, while keeping the costs affordable. It provides free consultations for sick and injured animals brought to the surgeries, to ensure that pets are seen as soon as they become ill.

A total of 3.2 million households in the UK have acquired a pet since the start of the pandemic and it’s estimated the country now has 17 million petowning homes[1]. Faced with this increasing demand, Animal Trust is keen to grow its surgeries to make its services accessible to more pet owners on lower incomes. Animal Trust is seeking to raise £2 million through a crowdfunded bond to support the fitout of two recently acquired surgeries and to support further growth.

Initially set up as a private limited company, the founder and chief executive Owen Monie, restructured the business into a community interest company (CIC) in 2020. For Animal Trust, sustainability is about making a difference to communities and patients, while minimising environmental impact and being financially sustainable over time. The CIC structure ensures profits are re-invested back into the social objectives of the business, rather than being used solely to maximise financial return for the founder.

Owen Monie, chief executive of Animal Trust, commented: “We believe that pet ownership isn’t just for the wealthy and every animal deserves access to experienced and professional veterinary care as soon as they become ill. We aim for someone who earns the Real Living Wage to be able to afford care for their pet at Animal Trust. We run our business for our customers and our staff and do it as sustainably as we can. In the near future, we also hope to become the first B Corps certified veterinary business in the UK.”

Investment is available from £50 and the £2 million, five-year bond will pay 6% per year interest. It is also available within the tax-efficient Innovative Finance ISA (IFISA) wrapper. As with all investments, interest payments and return of capital are not guaranteed and like all ISAs, the IFISA is subject to eligibility criteria. More information can be found on www.triodoscrowdfunding.co.uk.

Interview with the owners of Savvy

Lisa and Ben, two of the owners of Savvy Pet Spa talk about what it’s like to be a software supplier to the grooming world, the inspiration behind Savvy and how they have marked 3 years in business by planting 2109 trees.

Tell us about yourself

We’re Lisa and Ben, founders of Savvy. Ben has worked in software engineering for 25 years, Lisa has worked in business for 22 years. We’ve been married for 15 years! Ben has the drive and the ambition to create the best possible software solution, Lisa has the business knowledge and the understanding of what it is really like to run a small business keeping us focussed on what’s important to our clients.

How do you balance business and married life?

We have 3 teenage children, so life is crazy busy. Since we launched Savvy, it’s been a whirlwind. Lots of late nights! But we do always have dinner as a family and chat about the day. We have the same vision for Savvy and so that helps as we are pulling in the same direction. It isn’t perfect, but you make it work!

How have you found the first 3 years of Savvy?

The first 3 years were exciting but hard. It takes time to get a software product to be awesome! We are in the amazing position to be able to give our clients any feature they want. We listen to our groomers and we act upon their feedback, but keeping it simple, making sure we give tools that businesses really benefit from and making the features better than any other product is also important to us. We’ve also built a great customer service team with live chat from 8am-8pm daily, free demos 7 days a week and a brilliant facebook group for extra support. We do weekly business blogs, podcasts and daily top tips too so never a dull moment!

Tell us about the 2190 tree’s planted?

3 years of Savvy was a big milestone for us so what better time to launch our sustainability plan! The first step was to plant 2190 trees, 2 for every day since we launched. We have joined Ecologi, a company helping businesses like ours to reduce their carbon footprint. We can invest in a broad range of projects that are able to evidence that they are reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Ecologi also help us to plant our trees; as one of the best tools to tackle the climate crisis and keep our temperatures from rising above 1.5°C. Ecologi have a range of amazing tree planting partners who are able to responsibly plant trees on our behalf. See our Savvy forest here... shorturl.at/pJNW6

What are your goals for the next 3 years?

To make Savvy the software of choice for all groomers. We are committed to being the best software and giving the best support. We want our client base to be defined by individuals looking for products that will improve their work life balance, supercharge their business and create a buzz.

Any sneak peaks for whats coming in 2022?

2021 saw the launch of Version 2 online booking, our awesome Customer Mobile app ‘Savvy Customers’, ‘Savvy Groom School’, ‘Pet Stay’ modules for boarding and daycare and a fully integrated payment system ‘Savvy Pay’ which gives our groomers things like VIP payment plans and no-show protection and card-machines. 2022 will see some amazing new features to help our groomers market, advertise and grow their businesses, onwards and upwards!

Want to be a part of Savvy?

To join Savvy you can create a free trial at https://www.savvypetspa.com/ landing. Sign up to Savvy in January with the code TOTAL22 to get 20% off the first payment to any plan and a tree planted in the Savvy Forest. Email hello@itsallsavvy.com if you need any help!