Oyen Raises $420,000 Seed Funding The company will use the funds to enhance its proprietary digital insurance platform and reinforce its market position within Malaysia's pet healthcare insurance ecosystem

Malaysia-based digital-first pet healthcare insurance provider Oyen informed to have raised $420,000 in a Seed round participated by notable backers such as Hustle Fund, alongside angel investors who are former and current executives from Airbnb, Facebook, and Rocket Internet.

The company will use the funds to enhance its proprietary digital insurance platform and reinforce its market position within Malaysia's pet healthcare insurance ecosystem. To achieve this, the company is aggressively expanding its recruitment in various roles in technology (such as software engineering) and non-technology (such as growth marketing).

"The number of people who have pets for companionship has increased during one of the world's biggest recent crises, and our platform was specifically designed to alleviate concerns by pet owners – especially new ones – when managing their pets' medical needs. With the support from our investors, Oyen is now better positioned to expand and enhance its services across Malaysia, while also exploring how we can extend the benefits of our platform to pet owners at the regional level," said Kevin Hoong, founder, and chief executive officer, Oyen.

The company plans to be the first mover in this space by expanding its pet healthcare network through partnerships with regional insurers and veterinary clinics. This is part of the company's vision to dominate the pet healthcare space and make it affordable and accessible to all pet owners region-wide. The company is driving towards having 100,000 pets insured in Southeast Asia within the next three years.

"Southeast Asia is an exciting region with a lot of growth ahead of it, driven not just by accelerating technology adoption across industries, but also startups like Oyen who bring a product-led, customer-centered perspective to traditional products like insurance. We are excited by the growth that Kevin and his team have achieved in Malaysia and are keen to see the innovations that they will bring to the pet insurance ecosystem – both as an investor and dog-lover," added Shiyan Koh, general partner, and co-founder, Hustle Fund.

Oyen is currently operating in a fast-growing pet care market in the Asia-Pacific, where the regional market's compounding annual growth rate (CAGR) is estimated to reach $1,321 billion by 2027. According to the research, the region – including some of Southeast Asia's largest markets – is witnessing an increase in pet ownership, with nearly 60 per cent of people owning a pet at home. This trend escalated even further during the COVID-19 pandemic, with several pet owners noting that their pets are helping them cope with their mental health during the crisis. This subsequently opens up an exciting window of opportunities in the pet healthcare department, mainly insurance, with owners having to deal with pet's unexpected medical expenses for illness and injury – which can reach up to $1,941 annually.

As such – and amid a growing consumer shift towards digitized insurance offerings9 – Oyen is looking to work closely with industry players and regulators in the region to expand its services to more markets, with a view to introducing services for other consumer insurance segments for people such as home, life, and medical insurance.