Graduate secures funding to develop petcare vetting platform

A verification platform for pet owners to make essential checks of those they employ to look after their pets has secured funding to help develop the product.

Coventry University graduate Faithful Freeman, who graduated last year with a Master’s in Cyber Security, impressed judges at the university’s Dragons’ Den style competition with a pitch for a pet sitter verification platform called WalkIdentity.

The competition is supported through Santander X, Santander’s global entrepreneurship initiative, and the winning concepts all benefited from a share of £8,000, with Freeman securing £5,000.

Freeman said: “WalkIdentity ensures pet owners know the ID of their dog walkers or pet sitters, whether they are DBS checked and their right to work.

“I believe there is a big gap in the market for something like this – if you are a care provider in the UK you need to be certified with the CQC to look after humans but you don’t need anything like this to look after pets. Pet owners are often letting these people into their homes, to look after their animals, so I think it’s important that people are able to make these checks.”

Faithful said that the money would help grow the business and would assist with funding trademarking and a dog walker event in Coventry later in the year.