Longevity is becoming a defining focus of the future of healthcare. Whether through investing in wearables, annual biomarker panels, optimized fitness and diet, or therapeutic interventions, the underlying trend is sustaining peak physiological health for as long as possible. We believe this trend will become increasingly prevalent in pet healthcare.

As companion animals live longer, owners are looking for proactive ways to extend not just lifespan but healthspan, driving a rapidly growing market. Rising pet ownership, higher spend per pet, and the broader humanization of animals are fueling this growth.

At 2048 Ventures, we are obsessed with how the future of pet healthcare will take shape, and how data and technology will intersect to define it. We are particularly excited by platforms that go beyond simple data capture and turn inputs from wearables, diagnostics, and electronic health records (EHR) into actionable insights that drive meaningful changes in a pet’s health. We also see potential in longevity platforms that embed directly into veterinary practices, making preventative care the default.

We believe that the next generation of veterinary startups will:

• Redefine the standard of preventative medicine, shifting to proactive, continuous health management for companion animals.
• Move longevity care from niche to mainstream by integrating it into everyday veterinary practice.

Problems and Opportunities We See in The Space

Companion animals face the same age-related diseases as humans, yet pet healthcare remains largely reactive, with care beginning only after visible signs of illness or pain. This results in late-stage interventions and higher costs. There is an opportunity to shift care upstream, using early diagnostics and preventative therapies to detect or slow disease before it escalates.

Pet health data is highly fragmented, with most companies offering single point solutions across wearables, EHR, blood work, and genetic testing. Much of this data is also not actionable: pet parents often don’t know what to do with it, and vets aren’t integrated into the loop. There is an opportunity for a centralized platform that unifies data, provides actionable insights, and generates evidence of cost savings from early intervention.

Veterinary care is primarily paid out of pocket, causing preventative and longevity-focused services to remain expensive and currently accessible mainly to affluent pet owners. However, there is an opportunity to validate outcomes and demonstrate cost savings. Over time, these solutions can be standardized and scaled to reach a greater population, broadening access and unlocking a significantly larger market.

The Future of Veterinary Startups

Companion-animal health and longevity is advancing rapidly, with innovation across therapeutics, diagnostics, at-home testing, wearable sensors, and biobanking. Yet, most players today remain point solutions. The opportunity is to unify them into an end-to-end platform that can track, intervene, and continuously improve outcomes.

Several fronts are defining the future of pet health today:

• Longevity therapeutics are a key frontier. Loyal leads with the first-ever FDA-cleared drug candidates for aging, while other players are exploring gene therapies to modulate key longevity pathways.
• At-home diagnostics are on the rise, driven by convenience and the push for earlier disease detection. Pet owners can now order full-genome sequencing, microbiome analyses, and early cancer detection. Companies like AnimalBiome pair results with targeted interventions, highlighting the need to close the gap between detection and action.
• Wearables are moving toward continuous, clinical-grade monitoring. From collars tracking sleep and heart rate to AI-powered litter boxes like Purina’s Smart Litter Box measuring weight and urination, the leaders will integrate sensors with telehealth and diagnostics.
• Regenerative medicine is advancing through biobanking. Gallant offers stem cell banking for future age-related and inflammatory disease treatment. As we outlined in our Thesis on Biobanking, these platforms are about much more than storing biospecimens. The same holds true in pet health: the value comes from integrating samples and metadata into a longitudinal view of care.

Looking ahead, pet healthcare startups will move beyond monitoring and treatment toward genetic engineering to enhance health and extend lifespans. This is the natural next step in the longevity movement: shifting from treating disease to fundamentally redesigning biology itself.

Companies We Want to Meet

We are looking for founders building in these areas:

• Embeds into veterinary clinics to offer tech-enabled longevity services, such as advanced diagnostics, targeted interventions, extensive biomarker panels, and stem cell banking, giving pet owners the option to add onto their regular vet visits.
• Diagnostics integrated with personalized supplementation or tailored preventative interventions, where biomarker, genetic, or metabolic testing directly informs custom health plans for pets. These can be sold directly to the pet owner, enabling them to take a proactive role in their pet’s health.
• Integrated OS for pet health: data infrastructure that pipes real-time data (biomarkers, genetics, veterinary charts) into a unified longitudinal record, accessible to pet parents, vets, insurers, and researchers, with APIs for any product to plug in.
• Companies developing interventions to extend healthy lifespan of pets, including therapeutics that restore metabolic function, hormone balance, muscle mass, and other systems that deteriorate with age, as well as gene-edited traits that reduce the risk of common age-related diseases.

If you are a founder working in the space, we'd love to connect: 2048.vc/pitch-us