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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software Technology, Hardware |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | , |
Key people |
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Number of employees | 200 (2023) |
| Website | www |
Tractive develops and sells GPS & Health trackers for dogs and cats that enable pet owners to view their pet's real-time location, receive Health Alerts, and monitor activity and sleep patterns via a smartphone app. Tractive tracks around 1,000,000 pets in over 175 countries worldwide using GPS and GSM technology. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Michael Hurnaus, together with Michael Lettner, Michael Tschernuth and the founders of adidas Runtastic - including Florian Gschwandtner - founded Tractive in October 2012. The company released its first GPS dog tracker prototype at CES 2013 in Las Vegas. Their first generation tracking devices, released in 2014, received the Innovation of the Year Award at the Austrian Future Zone Awards.
2018 saw Tractive reach a milestone of 100,000 users worldwide, as well as receive a 7-figure investment from Monkfish Equity.
Tractive expanded into North America in 2021, a move made possible by Guidepost Growth Equity, which offered $35 million to the pet tech company. Andrew Bleiman - who had been working as general manager of Furbo, a US company specializing in dog home cameras - joined the business to spearhead the expansion.
In 2022 Tractive opened a new award-winning headquarters in Pasching, Austria, a move made necessary by their growing number of employees. [8] In July of that year, management transitioned the company to a 4-day workweek. [9]
2024 saw Tractive release "Tractive Pet Cover," its first foray into pet insurance. Tractive Pet Cover is currently available only in the United Kingdom, though the company hopes to expand the service to more countries over time. [10]
Tractive sells species-specific GPS & Health trackers for dogs and cats, tracker covers, LED collars, and other accessories.
Tractive's GPS trackers utilize LTE-M cellular networks, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi to track pets’ real-time locations. Tractive customers can view their pet's location via a free app available for iPhone and Android or via the web. They can also create virtual fences (geofences) to alert them when their pet leaves a safe area, such as a backyard, or enters a dangerous area, such as near a street or near a river.
When a pet’s behavior has shown unusual changes over a period of time, users receive an email letting them know that something could be wrong.
The Tractive GPS tracker records pet activity - including sleep, rest time, and estimated calories burned - to give users insights into their pet's fitness and wellbeing. Users can set activity goals and also see how their pet's activity levels compare to other pets in local and global leaderboards. Users with dogs can also keep track of their walks.
Tractive GPS devices do not have SIM-card openings or USB ports and are therefore not only protected against splashing water, but are also fully waterproof (up to 1 meter depth, 30 minutes), meeting IPX7-standards. As a result, Tractive GPS devices are suitable for water-loving pets and can be used in the rain. [11] [12] [13] [1] [5]
Tractive GPS trackers are equipped with GPS and a built-in SIM card. Unlike Bluetooth or radio trackers, they have unlimited range and work in over 175 countries worldwide.
In the US, Tractive works with all major US cellular providers, including Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.
Tractive GPS requires a paid subscription to track your pet. It covers the fees for the tracker's built-in SIM card with unlimited data. The BASIC package includes GPS tracking and unlimited LIVE tracking. The PREMIUM package has both GPS Tracking and unlimited LIVE Tracking plus it also includes worldwide coverage, premium customer service, and other features. [14]
Tractive has worked with various pet charities, projects, and initiatives. They have also led their own, several of which focused on the collective well-being of humans and pets. On one of these endeavors, Tractive sent out “puppy boxes” and “welcome home kits” to veterinarian offices, shelters, and dog breeders in Europe and the US. These contained free devices for people who had recently adopted pets. Tractive also introduced the Shelter Project, a program built to support shelters and rescues globally with free GPS tracking devices for their flight-risk animals.
Tractive raised $500k in 2012 and €2 million in 2016 from former race car driver Harold Primat. [1] [15] In 2018, they raised an additional "seven-digit" sum from Monkfish Equity, the investment vehicle of the founders of Trivago. [16]
In 2021, Tractive closed $35 million in growth funding led by Guidepost Growth Equity.
A leash is a rope or similar material used to control an animal by attaching it to a collar, harness, or halter. In British English, a leash is generally for a larger animal, with lead being more commonly used when walking a dog.
A microchip implant is an identifying integrated circuit placed under the skin of an animal. The chip, about the size of a large grain of rice, uses passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, and is also known as a PIT tag. Standard pet microchips are typically 11–13 mm long and 2 mm in diameter.
A dog collar is a piece of material put around the neck of a dog. A collar may be used for restraint, identification, fashion, protection, or training. Identification tags and medical information are often placed on dog collars. Collars are often used in conjunction with a leash for restraining a dog. Collars can be traumatic to the trachea if the dog pulls against the restraint of the leash, causing severe pressure to the neck. Use of a harness instead of a collar may be beneficial for dogs prone to tracheitis or those with a collapsed trachea. Conversely, dog breeds with slender necks or smaller heads may easily slip out of collars that are too loose. This can be avoided by using a martingale dog collar which tightens to distribute pressure around the neck when training the dog not to pull. Any style of dog collar must be properly fitted to ensure safety and collars should not be worn when the dog is unattended.
An animal collar is a device that attaches to the neck of an animal to allow it to be harnessed or restrained.
A pooper-scooper, or poop scoop, is a device used to pick up animal feces from public places and yards, particularly those of dogs. Pooper-scooper devices often have a bag or bag attachment. 'Poop bags' are alternatives to pooper scoopers, and are simply a bag, usually turned inside out, to carry the feces to a proper disposal area. Sometimes, the person performing the cleanup is also known as the pooper-scooper.
An Elizabethan collar, E collar, pet ruff or pet cone is a protective medical device worn by an animal, usually a cat or dog. Shaped like a truncated cone, its purpose is to prevent the animal from biting or licking at its body or scratching at its head or neck while wounds or injuries heal. The collars are named from the ruffs worn in the Elizabethan era.
Pet food is animal feed intended for consumption by pets. Typically sold in pet stores and supermarkets, it is usually specific to the type of animal, such as dog food or cat food. Most meat used for animals is a byproduct of the human food industry, and is not regarded as "human grade".
Royal Canin is a French manufacturer and global supplier of cat and dog food. The company is a subsidiary of Mars, Incorporated. It undertakes research into the specific nutritional needs of dogs and cats.
A pet fence or fenceless boundary is an electronic system designed to keep a pet or other domestic animal within a set of predefined boundaries without the use of a physical barrier. A mild electric shock is delivered by an electronic collar if its warning sound is ignored. The system was first invented and patented by Richard Peck in 1973.
GPS animal tracking is a process whereby biologists, scientific researchers, or conservation agencies can remotely observe relatively fine-scale movement or migratory patterns in a free-ranging wild animal using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and optional environmental sensors or automated data-retrieval technologies such as Argos satellite uplink, mobile data telephony or GPRS and a range of analytical software tools.
A shock collar or remote training collar, also known as an e-collar, Ecollar, or electronic collar, is a type of training collar that utilizes electrical shocks to induce pain to the neck of a dog or other parts of its body, depending on the desired outcome. These collars incorporate a radio-controlled electronic device and are worn around the dog's neck. Many European countries view shock collars as animal cruelty and have banned their use. The mechanism behind shock collars involve inflicting varying levels and duration of pain, which generates fear and serves as a deterrent for undesirable behaviors. Some models of shock collar models offer additional features such as a tone or vibrational setting that can be used as an alternative or in combination with the shock. Certain advanced collars include Internet mapping capabilities and GPS functionality to track the dog's location or notify the owner about its whereabouts.
A pet recovery service is a service that has been created for the specific purpose of reuniting lost or stolen pets with their owners.
Securus Inc., was a Cary, North Carolina based provider of GPS tracking and personal emergency response technology.
Pet travel is the process of traveling with or transporting pets. Pet carriers like cat carriers and dog crates confine and protect pets during travel.
Rover Group, Inc. is an American company which operates an online marketplace for people to buy and sell pet care services including pet sitting, dog boarding, and dog walking. Rover.com was founded in 2011 in Seattle, Washington and is formally incorporated under the name "A Place for Rover, Inc." The company serves as a broker and takes roughly 20% of each transaction booked through its site. The company was publicly listed on the Nasdaq since 2021, until it was taken private by Blackstone Inc. in 2024.
Invoxia is a French consumer electronics company known for the design and development of innovative smart devices that use artificial intelligence, such as the first GPS tracker on the market to use LoRa technology, the first connected speaker outside the Amazon ecosystem to use the Alexa voice system and a line of GPS trackers for preventing bike theft and monitoring pet activity. For the B2B market, it provides fleet tracking and asset management services. It also provides industrial IoT services including hardware design and development and the training and integration of neural networks.
Whistle Labs Inc. is a subsidiary of Mars Petcare headquartered in San Francisco, California. It produces and markets the Whistle GPS Pet Tracker, a device worn on a pet's collar that monitors its activity and location. In addition to pet owners, the devices have been used by veterinary researchers.
Vladimir Putin, the current president of Russia, has owned many dogs over time. His fondness of dogs has led to dogs becoming a notable political gift in Russian diplomatic relations.
Pet ownership in South Korea has increased in recent years. Dogs are the most common household animal, owned by 75.3% of pet-owning South Korean households, followed by cats, then goldfish. South Korean pet culture is constantly developing, and the companion animal industry in South Korea is worth an estimated 3.4 trillion won as of 2020.