A London-based veterinary start-up aiming to bring greater price transparency to pet care has raised £15 million to accelerate its expansion across the UK.
Hello Vet, which allows owners to stay with their pets while they are under and emerging from anesthesia, plans to open at least 20 to 25 new clinics and hire about 200 veterinarians and animal carers in the next two years. The company says it is pursuing growth cautiously to ensure standards of care are maintained.
Hello Vet co-founder and CEO James Lighton said the funding gives the company confidence to scale, but not at the expense of quality. “We have the resources to open at least 20 or 25 more clinics,” he said. “Pacing is really about how quickly we can be confident that the quality of care won’t decline as we grow. We’d rather do well over four years than do poorly over a year and a half.”
The latest funding round was led by US venture capital firm Addition and UK-based investor Future Positive, along with 15 veterinary experts who had previously backed the company with £6 million in 2023. Hello Vet currently has around 7,500 registered patients.
The expansion comes against the backdrop of increasing scrutiny of prices in the veterinary sector. The Competition and Markets Authority reported in October that average vet prices rose 63 percent between 2016 and 2023, far outpacing inflation. It also found that pet owners pay an average of 16.6 percent more at large veterinary groups than at independent practices. Six major chains now control around 60 percent of Britain’s clinics, compared with just 11 percent a decade earlier.
In response, the CMA has proposed requiring veterinary companies to publish price lists on a comparison site. This step could come into force from the end of 2026. Hello Vet already publishes the estimated procedure costs online, although the company lists its prices as “mid-range” and not the cheapest.
In addition to its clinic model, Hello Vet offers a free WhatsApp triage service to help owners avoid unnecessary appointments. The service, which aims to respond within 15 minutes, is delivered by teams at local clinics and has helped owners save more than £75,000 over the past year, according to the company.
Dr. Oli Viner, co-founder and chief veterinary technology officer, said the service could make a significant difference. “Shortly after we opened, someone came forward concerned about their kitten’s breathing,” he said. “They sent us a video and we could see that the kitten was actually purring. In a traditional clinic, they would have had to rush in, which would have been stressful and unnecessary.”
Founded in 2022 by Viner, Lighton and Alessandro Guazzi, Hello Vet opened its first clinic in July last year. Since then, four further sites have opened in London and Hertfordshire, with a fifth due to open in January. The company plans to grow using a hub-and-spoke model, combining larger central clinics with smaller satellite locations in surrounding areas as it expands nationwide.
