Former Huami executives start a business, add AI to pet collars, and have completed the Pre-A round of financing | Emerge NewThings

How can humans better understand their pets? AI might be a solution.

SATELLAI (hereinafter referred to as "SATELLAI") is an overseas-oriented company headquartered in Shenzhen. Its main business is to develop smart collars for pets.

SATELLAI launched its first AI-powered smart pet collar this spring. In less than three months after its launch, it has achieved millions of dollars in sales. During the just-concluded Amazon Prime Day, this product also ranked first among new products in its category.

According to "Intelligent Emergence", SATELLAI recently completed a Pre-A round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB. This round was led by Zero One Capital (01VC), with existing shareholders Zero Yi Capital and LinGe Venture Capital continuing to increase their investments.

In December 2024, SATELLAI completed an angel round of financing worth tens of millions of RMB. It was led by Future Light Cone Frontier Technology Fund and Zero Yi Capital, with LinGe Venture Capital participating.

Image: Provided by the interviewee

In fact, before the breakthrough in AI technology, there were already several smart pet collar brands on the market. Well-known brands in the North American market include SpotOn and Halo. Most of the functions of such products revolve around positioning and health monitoring.

The first smart collar launched by SATELLAI is compatible with the above basic functions and has been upgraded in terms of hardware, software, and AI algorithms.

Currently, SATELLAI's functions mainly revolve around three aspects: the safety and retrieval of pet dogs, daily training management, and AI-based health analysis and prediction.

In terms of positioning management, the smart collar has a trajectory tracking function. At the same time, pet owners can customize thousands of virtual fences with adjustable sizes to define safe areas.

This system does not rely on traditional methods such as buried wires on the ground or physical restraints. Instead, it uses location-based alerts and AI training reinforcement.

When a pet runs out of the safe area, the collar will provide feedback such as vibrations and the owner's voice calling the pet back to guide the trained pet to return to the safe virtual fence area. At the same time, the owner can receive real-time information about the pet's escape.

This function meets the needs of families in the United States and other countries that keep dogs in large spaces. Currently, there are a total of 90 million pet dogs in North America, and the annual loss rate is as high as 10%.

In terms of health management, the collar can monitor the pet's activities, sleep, etc. in real time and issue early warnings for acute abnormalities.

Optimizations at the software level have also extended the battery life of SATELLAI's pet collar to more than 5 days. The battery life of similar products is mostly around 1 day.

In the future, based on the collection of a large amount of data and the upgrade of AI and hardware capabilities, SATELLAI also plans to provide full-link smart pet management, including functions such as an AI coach, personalized courses, and health guidance such as dietary suggestions.

By capturing data such as the pet's barks, postures, and exercise volume, AI can help owners analyze the pet's behavior trends and notify the owner of emergencies in a timely manner when the owner is not present.

With the development of technology, smart pet devices will form an ecosystem. In the future, the collar may also become the entrance to this ecosystem and interact with products such as feeders.

The data collected by the AI collar may also collaborate with insurance and medical supplies to promote pet services.

Recently, Fetch Pet Insurance, a well-known pet insurance company in North America, also announced a strategic partnership with SATELLAI.

The two parties can combine data for service development and algorithm optimization, which may help the insurance company optimize the calculation algorithm for pet insurance premiums. There is also a possibility of connecting the links from pet hardware to insurance, medical care, and pet food and medicine through joint data development.

Image: Provided by the interviewee

Currently, the global pet industry is growing rapidly. In the US market, there are 164 million cats and dogs. However, compared with the upstream food and nutrition products and the downstream medical insurance and daily necessities retail, the concentration of smart pet devices is still relatively low, leaving large room for hardware brands.

Based on the background of the founding team, SATELLAI has determined two major directions since its establishment: pet wearables and overseas expansion.

The SATELLAI team consists of veterans in the hardware industry's overseas business. It was co-founded by Mao Hanyong, the former vice president of overseas business at Huami Technology, and Gu Yan, the former vice president of R & D at Huami Technology.

Both founders have rich experience in the smart hardware industry and a global perspective, covering various smart wearable products, self-developed OS systems, health cloud services, and the world's first sports AI coach assistant. They have also participated in the engineering and commercialization of hundreds of millions of human wearables.

Therefore, by focusing on smart collars, the team can avoid competition from large companies and transfer the methodological system accumulated in the human wearable field to the relatively niche pet scenario. The team's previous experience includes low-power system design, RF/antenna engineering, sensor fusion algorithms, firmware-cloud collaboration, mass production yield, and quality control.

Image: Provided by the interviewee

Currently, SATELLAI's products are mainly sold in the US market because consumers there have more mature habits of paying for pet products. The company plans to expand sales to Europe next.

In terms of price, SATELLAI's products are also differentiated. Currently, smart collars in the US market are positioned in two ways: "good functions but expensive" and "white-label, simple functions but cheap".

The representative high-end smart collar brands in the US, SpotOn and Halo, are priced from $999 and $599 respectively. White-label smart collars are priced at around $100. Relying on China's supply chain, SATELLAI's products have functions similar to those of the former, but the official Amazon price is relatively low at $499.99.

In terms of business model, SATELLAI adopts the "hardware + subscription" model. The smart collar monitors pet information, and users receive this information through a paid software subscription, which also constitutes another part of the company's revenue.

The subscription function charges a monthly fee of $9.99, which is the same as the subscription price of Halo, a leading smart collar brand in North America. It is also similar to Tractive's monthly subscription fee of 5 to 13 euros (approximately $6 to $15).

Tractive, a leading player in the smart collar industry in Europe, previously announced that the ARR of its subscription service has exceeded approximately $105 million. This also verifies the feasibility of the "hardware entry + subscription" model from the side.

It is reported that the new round of financing just completed by SATELLAI will be used for the continuous iteration and mass production of pet positioning collars and satellite-integrated trackers, the expansion of overseas channels, and the service-oriented construction around location, behavior, and health data.

CEO Mao Hanyong mentioned that the financing will also be beneficial for stock preparation for the peak sales season in the second half of the year.