Dutch Pet • Big challenges and big ambitions
From Hims to Hounds: How Dutch Pet Built a Venture-Grade Finance Function
The need
When Hims (NYSE: HIMS) co-founder Joe Spector needed veterinary care for his dog Eddie during the pandemic, he noticed there wasn’t a remote vet option for pets. So in 2021, he built one.
The challenge
Dutch Pet launched as a telehealth platform for dogs and cats, bringing licensed veterinarians online to diagnose, treat, and prescribe for pets in a category that had no established playbook. It’s like Hims for pets: a subscription-based, direct-to-consumer healthcare business betting that a generation of pet owners would embrace the same digital-first model that had revolutionized human healthcare.
The ambition was huge. So were the challenges.
Dutch is institutionally funded ($5M in seed, $20M Series A) and operates with the high-burn, high-growth profile typical of subscription businesses still investing aggressively in customer acquisition. Unlike many investor-backed startups that enter established markets, Dutch has had to simultaneously build the product, educate the market, and navigate a complex regulatory and compliance landscape.
The solution
Joe Spector reached out to Propeller CFO Anthony Rosen directly, having worked with him previously during Hims’ growth. Propeller's engagement with Dutch is structured in three layers, designed to complement rather than replace the company's in-house capabilities.
Accounting (Foundation layer)
Propeller handles all of Dutch's accounting, providing the rigorous, audit-ready financial record-keeping that a multi-entity, investor-backed healthcare business demands. This includes managing multiple legal entities, passthrough structures, and compliance requirements particular to the veterinary telehealth space. Propeller provides this accounting infrastructure at a meaningfully lower cost than hiring additional in-house staff to handle it.
FP&A (Middle layer)
Dutch's in-house finance team leads financial planning and analysis, building and maintaining the operating models the business uses to manage performance. Propeller's accounting output feeds that work directly, ensuring the data is clean and reliable.
Strategic CFO support (Top layer)
Anthony serves as a senior resource for Dutch's in-house CFO: a thought partner for benchmarking against comparable businesses, a reviewer and advisor for fundraising materials, and an experienced voice in the room for strategic decisions. This isn't a replacement for Dutch's internal leadership; it's an extension of it.
Building infrastructure for growth
This complexity requires rigorous, audit-ready accounting across a multi-entity structure; compliance with healthcare-adjacent regulations; and a finance function that could support (without redundancy) an in-house team.
The outcome
Dutch’s ambition requires more than a great product; it requires financial infrastructure and strategic guidance that can support a complex, fast-moving business without adding unnecessary overhead.
Dutch currently has over 1.2M pets active on its platform. In 2025, it fulfilled nearly 223,000 individual prescriptions, serving 126,000 unique pets during 103,000 consults for conditions like allergies, anxiety, and year-round flea and tick protection. A solid financial foundation helps Dutch meet pet parents where they are with expert guidance and treatment plans.
By partnering with Propeller, Dutch has been able to maintain a lean, efficient back office while accessing accounting expertise and CFO-level perspective that would otherwise require multiple additionalfull-time hires. The three-layer model (Propeller accounting, in-house FP&A, and Anthony's strategic overlay) gives Dutch a finance function that’s sophisticated enough to support a high-stakes fundraising process, and rigorous enough to meet the compliance demands of operating in a regulated industry.
The engagement also reflects a facet of how Propeller works with venture-backed businesses at different stages: the goal isn't to own the finance function, it's to make the whole function work better. For Dutch Pet, that has meant giving an ambitious, growing team the financial foundation it needs to focus on its goals.
“During Dutch’s fundraising process, Anthony's experience supporting businesses through capital raises (including due diligence, pitch materials, and benchmarking) has given our team a resource we wouldn't otherwise access without adding senior headcount.”
Joe Spector
Founder + CEO
