Rover Group, Inc. is an American company which operates an

online marketplace An online marketplace (or online e-commerce marketplace) is a type of e-commerce website where product or service information is provided by multiple third parties. Online marketplaces are the primary type of multichannel ecommerce and can be a wa ...

for people to buy and sell pet care services including

pet sitting Pet sitting is the act of temporarily taking care of another person's pet for a given time frame. It commonly occurs at the pet owner's home, but may also occur at the provider's home or at a pet sitting place of business or organization. Pet sitti ...

dog boarding Dog boarding, also known as dog sitting, refers to overnight care for dogs. It is offered through service providers including dog kennels, professional boarding facilities, dog hotels, dog resorts, private dog sitters' homes, or within the home ...

, and dog walking. Rover was founded in 2011 in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

and was formally incorporated under the name "A Place for Rover, Inc." The company serves as a

broker A broker is a person or entity that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller. This may be done for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither ...

and takes roughly 30% of each transaction booked through its site, up from 20% in 2017. The company was

publicly listed A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (li ...

on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

since 2021, until it was taken private by Blackstone in 2024.

History

Rover was founded by Greg Gottesman after he had a difficult time finding good pet sitter for his yellow

Labrador Labrador () is a geographic and cultural region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the primarily continental portion of the province and constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its populatio ...

. In June 2011, he went to the

Startup Weekend A Startup Weekend (also known as Startupweekend or SW) is a 54-hour entrepreneurship educational competitive event, in which groups of participants form teams around ideas the Friday evening, and work during the weekend to develop a working protot ...

, and pitched the idea for what would become Rover. At that event, Gottesman worked with interested supporters, including co-founder Philip Kimmey, and they later decided to move ahead with starting the company. Rover first began operations in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. By 2012 it had expanded to all 50 states. On March 29, 2017, Rover acquired DogVacay in an all-stock deal. At that time, it was reported that total bookings on the combined sites amounted to $150 million in 2016, of which they kept about 20% in commission fees. On May 2, 2018, Rover announced expansion into Europe.

Services

In 2011, Rover began creating a marketplace for dog sitting and boarding services. Over the next four years, it expanded its business to include dog walking, daycare, and drop-in visits. Every sitter on the platform is an independent contractor and is not an employee of Rover. In 2017, Rover began its Quick Match dog walking service, enabling owners to instantly book a dog walker. The service is no longer available. Rover takes a percentage of each booking made on its platform.

Lawsuits and controversies

Rover has been sued multiple times for deaths of pets resulting from negligent care provided by sitters. In September 2020, a woman's dogs went missing for three months following a Rover visit. The sitter who had been watching the dogs was still accepting new clients and available on Rover while the pet owner was searching for her dogs. Rover only referred to themselves as an advertising company for independent contractors. Rover's current Q&A Community page had a question posted by a woman whose dog in the care of Rover sitter escaped the yard where the dog was left unattended, and was later hit by a car and killed. The Rover user asked for some sort of reimbursement and the sitter to be removed. Rover responded by asking the user to reach out to Rover's team to review the case. An article from 11ALIVE.com discusses a woman whose dog also escaped during a Rover boarding and was hit and killed by car. She has since started a petition asking for Rover to review their criteria for sitters and the safety of the pets. The petition, started after her dog died June 4, 2021, is currently above 15,175 signatures.

Financing

Rover's first round of investment funding was secured in April 2012, led by Madrona Venture Group. Additional capital was secured in February 2013, from The Foundry Group. In July 2013,

Petco Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. is an American Pet store, pet retailer with corporate offices in San Diego and San Antonio. Petco sells pet food, products, and services, as well as certain types of live small animals. Founded in 1965 as ...

announced an investment in Rover, and a business partnership for cross-promotion with Petco's stores and website. In March 2014, it was announced that Rover had raised an additional $12 million in funding led by

Menlo Ventures Menlo Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with an additional office in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded as one of the earliest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley in 1976 and provides technology ...

, with Madrona Venture Group, The Foundry Group, and Petco. One year later, in March 2015, it was announced that Rover raised a $25 million funding round led by

Technology Crossover Ventures TCMI, Inc. better known by the name TCV (Technology Crossover Ventures) is an American investment firm based in Menlo Park, California. The firm mainly invests in public and private growth-stage companies in the technology industry. Background ...

. Rover received $40 million in investments in October 2016 and another $65 million in July 2017, led by Spark Capital. In May 2018, Rover raised another $155 million

funding Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm use ...

. Rover became a publicly traded company via a

special-purpose acquisition company A special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a blank check company or a blind-pool stock offering, is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring (or merging with) a private company, thus taking ...

in August 2021 and was listed on the

exchange under the ticker: ROVR. In November 2023, Blackstone announced that it would acquire Rover for $2.3 billion. The acquisition was completed in February 2024.

References

External links