Rescues lack modern tools
Most run on spreadsheets, email and Facebook posts. Listings, applications, home checks and outcomes all live in different places — or no place at all.
Venture · in build
AdoptDontShop.
Adoption made simple. A swipe-based pet adoption platform connecting UK rescue pets with the right humans — built mobile-first, free for adopters.
The problem
The path to adoption should be simpler than the path to a breeder.
100,000+ pets enter UK rescues every year, but adoption is slow and fragmented. Buying from a breeder is easier than adopting from a rescue.
Adopters bounce between sites
Charity websites have inconsistent UX. The under-40 segment expects Tinder-quality discovery, not a PDF form.
The solution
A consumer app plus rescue SaaS that owns the full journey.
For adopters
Swipe-based discovery with smart matching on lifestyle, home and experience. One profile, applications across multiple rescues, clear status tracking from application to home check to adoption.
For rescues
A dashboard for listings, applications, home checks and outcomes. Built-in messaging and document handling. Analytics on time-to-adoption and applicant quality.
Market
Pet ownership is digital-native for the under-40 segment.
Market indicators
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| UK pet care market | £7bn |
| Pets entering UK rescues annually | 100,000+ |
| New pets adopted since COVID | 3.2m |
| Largest adopter segment | Gen Z & Millennials |
Business model
Free for adopters keeps top-of-funnel friction at zero.
Revenue streams
| Stream | Payer | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Rescue SaaS | Rescues | Tiered monthly subscription |
| Affiliate revenue | Vets, insurers, pet food, accessories | Rev-share on adopter conversion |
| Premium adopter | Adopters | Optional — priority matching, extras |
Competitive landscape
Modern UX, adoption-only, multi-rescue in one app.
How AdoptDontShop differs
| Player | Their strength | ADS edge |
|---|---|---|
| Pets4Homes | Scale | Adoption-only focus, ethical positioning |
| Charities (RSPCA, Dogs Trust, etc.) | Trust, supply | Modern UX, cross-rescue search |
| Facebook groups | Reach | Structured journey, applicant quality |
Go-to-market
Cluster, then influence, then national.
Two-sided marketplaces don't survive a national cold start. We onboard density first.
Phase 1 · Cluster
Convert the 5 lister LOIs to signed agreements and onboard 50–100 invited adopters from the existing waitlist into a single-region closed beta. Density before reach.
Phase 2 · Influence
TikTok and Instagram pet creators drive adopter installs alongside organic. Public launch opens the rescue dashboard beyond the closed beta cohort.
Phase 3 · National
20 active listers and the first 100 adoptions by Q1 2027, then UK-wide rollout. Vet, insurer and food-brand partnerships layer on revenue and supply.
Where we are · June 2026
Alpha build is feature-complete. Compliance is the gate.
The core adoption flow ships end-to-end in the alpha. The path to closed beta now runs through legal foundation, the data protection package and platform hardening — not more product code.
Shipped in the alpha
Auth, rescue verification, pet listings with staff permissions, adopter browse/filter/like flow, rescue search & discovery, real-time chat with unread counts and full-text search, email and in-app notifications with per-account channel preferences, admin broadcasts, document and image upload with signed delivery, automated content moderation, matching recommendations, saved analytics reports, a CMS for rescue-owned content pages, field-level role permissions, two-factor authentication (TOTP), per-user pet favourites, rescue custom application questions, staff invitation accept, GDPR right-to-erasure, personalised pet recommendations (Top Picks), autosaving application drafts, and account sanction notices. Microservices migration complete — all ten domain services (auth, pets, rescue, applications, notifications, chat, moderation, matching, audit, storage) run as independent gRPC containers behind the API gateway and the legacy monolith is deleted, with Redis-backed rate limiting, per-service circuit breakers, OpenTelemetry distributed tracing, Sigstore container signing, and full Docker dev + prod environments. Security hardening pass done: signed inter-service identity tokens, a full audit trail with payload redaction, an auditable deploy safety gate, interactive OpenAPI docs gated behind admin auth, all high-severity static-analysis findings resolved, and CI gating every merge on service tests and E2E.
Three frontends, one platform
React 18 + Vite + vanilla-extract across the adopter portal (app.client), rescue dashboard (app.rescue) and internal admin (app.admin). Ten domain microservices in TypeScript, each with its own PostgreSQL 16 + PostGIS schema and Redis 7, behind a Fastify API gateway fronted by Nginx. Services communicate over gRPC + NATS JetStream with durable, at-least-once delivery, managed with pnpm + Turborepo for fast, cache-aware builds.
Demand signal preserved
5 lister letters of intent and a 1,000+ adopter waitlist carried over from the prior cycle. Cluster-first: we convert the LOIs to signed lister agreements at closed beta, not before.
Re-baselined roadmap to public launch
| Milestone | Window | Definition of done |
|---|---|---|
| Legal foundation | Jun 2026 | Incorporation, HMRC, ICO controller registration, IP assignment, solicitor on retainer |
| Data protection package | Jul 2026 | DPIA signed off, ROPA published, Privacy, Cookie, ToS and AUP solicitor-reviewed |
| Platform hardening | Jul 2026 | Dedicated AWS, RDS with restore drill, Sentry + Plausible + uptime, CI green, rollback documented |
| Closed beta | Aug–Sep 2026 | 5 lister agreements signed, 50–100 invited adopters, applications flowing end-to-end |
| Trust & safety hardening | Sep 2026 | Charity Commission + Companies House verification, home checks, moderation and welfare runbooks |
| Payments & commercial | Oct 2026 | Stripe live, SaaS tiers published, first paid lister contracted, first affiliate LOI signed |
| Public launch | Nov 2026 | Waterfall gate: legal, compliance, platform, trust & safety and commercial all green |
What we cut from scope
A rescue ratings system (against principle), a “wishlist” feature (animal-as-listing — no thanks), and premium rescue placements (the £40k cheque we turned down). Build-in-public notes live on the studio journal.
Five-year projection
From 20 rescues to 1,000.
Active rescues and revenue mix
| Metric | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active rescues | 20 | 250 | 1,000 |
| Affiliate revenue % of total | 10% | 25% | 35% |
Funding ask
£500k seed to fund 18 months of rescue onboarding, growth and engineering.
Allocation
| Allocation | Share | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering & product | 45% | CTO hire, mobile build, dashboard polish |
| Growth & partnerships | 35% | Influencer marketing, rescue onboarding |
| Operations & compliance | 20% | Legal, data protection, runway |
Want to back the seed?
Pitch decks and the full financial model are available on request. Email investors@ideasquared.co.uk.
Impact
A cultural shift to “adopt first”.
50,000
Successful adoptions by 2030
The medium-term operating goal — the number that turns AdoptDontShop into a category leader for ethical adoption in the UK.
Reduced euthanasia rates
Faster, better-matched adoptions across partner rescues mean fewer pets reaching the welfare cliff edge.
“Adopt first” before “buy”
The cultural shift we're after — making adoption the default expectation, not the more difficult option.
“The path to adoption should be simpler than the path to a breeder. Today it's the opposite.”
Alex Jenkinson
Founder & CEO, AdoptDontShop