BUCATSTATE enjoys a huge development dividend from the rapidly growing small pet industry.
Domestic small pet brand BUCATSTATE (Chinese: 布卡星) has recently completed a Pre-A round of financing led by Goldin Capital and followed by Co-share Capital. The proceedings will be mainly used for new product development and supply chain integration.
Founded in 2019, BUCATSTATE focuses on the food and supplies for small pets like hamsters, rabbits and birds, and is committed to scientific pet ownership.
Yao Yuanrong, the founder of BUCATSTATE, said that the size of the small pet industry is close to CNY 10 billion and growing rapidly. With the hamster sector as an example, its compound growth rate in the past four years exceeded 20%.
The reasons for the rapid expansion of the industry are as follows.
The first is the obvious change in the age group of the consumer population, from the previous student group to today’s 18- to 35-year-old female group, which brings a huge increase in the industry's spending power.
The second is the change in consumer demand. In the past, people simply raised pets for fun, but now pets can bring companionship and consolation. Also, consumers can build a comfortable house for their small pets by purchasing beautiful and delicate decorations, which help them to obtain spiritual satisfaction.
The third is the change in consumption channels. Due to the changes in the consumer population and the normalization of the Covid-19, people tend to do shopping on online platforms rather than offline stores, which broadens the sales scope of companies in the small pet industry and leads to an increase in the market scale.
The fourth is the upgrade of products, such as the upgrade of materials for hamster cages and the ingredients of hamster food. The product upgrade will invariably bring about the consumption upgrade, which further results in the expansion of the whole industry.
The fifth is the extension of information dissemination channels. With the popularity of social platforms such as Douyin and Red, more and more pet owners register accounts on those APPs to share their pet-keeping lives, which is a powerful attraction to potential consumers.