Founded by Ben Sweeney in 2020, VidiVet provides 24-hour online vet triage for pet owners across the UK. Through the app, VidiVet is redefining teletech while increasing operational efficiency and profitability for Veterinary practices.
VidiVet entered and made the Main Liverpool City Region Tech Climbers list earlier this year (2023) as recognition towards their rapid growth, impact and investment up to that point. And it wasn’t just us spotlighting their efforts, they were also crowned as the region’s most exciting technology scaleup at TechNation’s Rising Stars 5.0 in 2023.
Since our List Reveal in February 2023, the business has significantly grown to a team of sixty, which includes a network of remote-working veterinarian experts, and they’ve recently announced a six-figure investment from Fund: AI, managed by River Capital.
Their latest project has been creating a white-label version of their solution, allowing other companies to take the model to market and improve veterinary care across the UK.
As we head back for our fourth campaign in the Liverpool City Region, we’ve caught up with founder Ben to gain insight into the company’s growth over the last few years and what’s next for them.
Q. What have been the biggest highlights from your growth journey so far?
For me, it’s some of the key milestones the business has hit as we’ve taken VidiVet to market. I first launched VidiVet in March 2020. After six months of interviewing and ideation, we launched a guidance panel, which people were willing to pay to be a part of. Unfortunately, so many ideas never get to a paying customer, so even taking VidiVet from zero to one was a huge moment for me.
Other amazing firsts have followed, including the launch of the first version of the app with a major brand partner in May 2021 (who we are still partnered with to this day), and our first vet practice coming on board as part of the pilot programme in October 2021. This was a massive highlight at the time, but fast forward to October 2023, we celebrated hitting 100 vet clinics using the service.
Personally, one of the greatest highlights will always be watching the expansion of the team. Being able to justify roles as we grow and build a developing team that’s invested in the concept is awesome!
Q. How did entering and making the Tech Climbers list support your growth this year?
Within the tech space, you see a lot of ‘vanity’ awards, in which you basically pay for a mention. Tech Climbers isn’t like that, it’s free to enter and is looking to naturally profile the businesses that are looking for investment and growth opportunities. We entered Tech Climbers and Tech Nation around the same time, and making both lists ultimately put VidiVet, and me as founder, on the map in Liverpool, drawing the interest of River Capital who invested in us in September. There are many amazing tech businesses in the Liverpool City Region, so going out and gaining that exposure has been so important.
Another huge benefit of Tech Climbers has been gaining exposure to the Liverpool City Region tech community. I’m not from the tech scene, and I work remotely, so it’s so important to innovation (and my sanity) that I have that community around me, offering support and inspiration. Through Tech Climbers events, not only have I been able to engage with the local founder community, but I’ve also had the opportunity to share my journey and use my experience to support others, which is so important to me.
Q. What’s been the biggest challenge as you’ve grown? What advice would you give to others facing the same issue?
I would say over the past year we’ve finally found our product-market fit, and as we head into 2024, we will be pushing towards scaling the business. Along the way, we’ve hit a few challenges, one being growing the team too quickly, meaning we had to make cuts and structure changes.
My advice would be to bring in trusted and transparent advisors around you. Even the greatest founders will be blinkered, so it’s so important you have expert advisors around you who can offer neutral guidance.
Another would be to be really open with your communication across the team. Once I let my team in on the business challenges, it was so liberating to see how engaged and supportive they were in order to get us through harder times.
Q. What’s the biggest piece of advice you’ve been given on your growth journey that you’d like to pass on to future founders?
It’s one word that’s easy to say and incredibly hard to do. Focus.
When you’re in the initial stages of business, you want to grab all the different shiny opportunities or ideas that present themselves to you. But normally, your first idea is right. So, stay focussed– and even if you disprove your theory, you’ve eliminated its possibility and can move on to the next.
Q. You recently spoke at our Liverpool launch about your recent investment. What’s next for VidiVet?
Short-term survive, long-term thrive - that’s the nature of the startup sector at the moment. Unfortunately, there are a lot of good companies with brilliant ideas that won’t have the backing to scale their idea or get to market, which is a shame. For us, we’ll be focussed on the short-term path to profitability and scaling the solution over the next twelve months, while we explore the opportunities that it presents.
The idea of this investment is to keep us on the path that we’ve been on and to put us in the rare position where our bank balance doesn’t go down every month.
VIDIVET MAKES 2024 TECH CLIMBERS LIST
On the 20th February we announced our fourth Tech Climbers list in the Liverpool City Region. VidiVet retained its place on the list alongside other trailblazers in the industry. View the full list, here.