Traditional pet identification methods, such as tags and microchips, are often imperfect and can pose various challenges for pet owners. In response to these limitations, Jesse Joonho Lim and Ken Daehyun Pak founded an app called Petnow. The app, which has raised $5.25 million in funding from investors and boasts a valuation of $24 million, claims to identify cats and dogs by scanning their faces, specifically their snouts.
Petnow operates through a mobile app available on both Android and iOS devices. Users can capture images of their pets’ faces using their smartphone cameras, and the app utilizes AI trained on a vast database of approximately 200,000 images of dog and cat snouts. These images were collected by the Petnow team and sourced from users’ pets. The app then creates a unique biometric profile for each pet based on these scans.
To ensure accurate identification, Petnow employs an algorithm that can automatically detect and isolate dogs and cats in the images, cropping out any extraneous background elements. For dogs, Petnow focuses on creating a “nose print,” asserting that a dog’s nose is as unique as a human fingerprint and remains unchanged over time. For cats, the app examines a cat’s “facial contour,” which Petnow believes retains its distinctiveness due to individual grooming habits.
The founders envision various applications for Petnow, including registering pets without visiting a veterinarian, locating missing pets, and creating “pet IDs” for insurance purposes. They see the pet identification market as having significant potential for growth and becoming a fundamental part of pet ownership.
In a world where pets are beloved family members, reliable and efficient identification methods like Petnow could offer peace of mind to pet owners and streamline various aspects of pet care.
