Singapore is the ‘litmus test’ for how much consumers will spend on their pets: Vetreska CEO Donald Kng

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[SINGAPORE] More often than not, Singapore companies tend to start operations in the city-state before going overseas. But the pet supplies company Vetreska is doing the exact opposite.

First conceived in New York as an idea between roommates – a Singaporean and a Chinese national – and started as a boutique design studio in the US, Vetreska eventually moved to Shanghai to set up operations selling premium-priced pastel-coloured cactus cat scratchers.

But the Covid-19 pandemic and a chance conversation with a Singapore government agency, the Economic Development Board (EDB), saw Vetreska move its headquarters back to the city-state, which has now become the base for its second phase of global expansion.

“Singapore represents a very good litmus test for whether people are able to accept the whole high-end pet wellness concept in one of the most expensive cities in the world,” Donald Kng, co-founder and chief executive officer of Vetreska, told The Business Times in an interview at the company’s office in Singapore’s Orchard Road. “If this concept fails here we don’t really need to try any other place,” he argued. 

As Kng puts it, Vetreska is targeting the “Alo girl”, or females who have spending power and are willing to pay a premium for well-designed products and services that fit a modern trendy lifestyle. Alo is a premium athleisure brand. 

Vetreska is what Kng calls a “luxury furniture and accessories brand”. It is now gearing up to become a high-end luxury pet brand that offers everything from pet grooming and wellness to food. On the food front, Vetreska has experimented with healthy ingredients such as acai berry and cottage cheese (the latter was a failure), and even freeze-dried “hotpot” for pets.

The pet business

Globally, the pet market, which includes pet care, food and products, is expected to be valued at about US$330.6 billion by 2028, according to markets intelligence firm Euromonitor International. That is a 10.2 per cent increase from the US$300 billion estimate as at 2025.

The rise in spending for pets started before the pandemic, especially in developed economies where more people are opting to own pets. 

It is a trend Kng and his business partners tapped when they looked to pivot from the fashion industry. Kng was in fashion management and his business partner Nico Li was in fashion journalism. Both of them met as students at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, a fashion school in New York. 

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They knew they wanted to focus on a specific group of consumers: young women. Of all the potential areas of interests, which included plastic surgery, clean beauty and dental aesthetics, Kng said he felt pets represented the “best canvas” for what they wanted and could do.

Vetreska moved to Shanghai to start the business in 2016, leveraging China’s supply chain to make their pet products. Other factors that drew them to China included the positivity around the Chinese economy during that period, and the wave of foreign domestic investments that were going into the country. 

An encounter in 2022 with Singapore’s EDB, which is tasked with bringing businesses into Singapore, led to Kng moving the company’s headquarters to the Republic.

New business segments

Heading back to the city-state attracted renewed attention from investors. Vetreska completed a Series C funding round in October 2022 that raised US$50 million. It then entered into a joint venture with the Indonesian-owned agri-food company Japfa in 2023 to make pet food. 

According to Euromonitor International’s data, pet products accounted for just under 14 per cent of the 2025 pet market. The biggest opportunity was in pet care followed by pet food, which represented about 50 and 36 per cent of the pet market, respectively. 

Vetreska’s gross revenue for 2024 reached US$158 million last year, an 18-fold increase from 2018, Vetreska’s first full year of sales. Revenue is still largely driven by pet accessories.

Meanwhile, Kng said he hopes revenue from Vetreska’s Fur stores can hit “seven digits in Singapore dollars”. 

The company has two pet grooming centres in Singapore called Fur by Vetreska. One is situated along Singapore’s shopping belt Orchard Road and the other in the Holland Village district.

“The Fur concept is born out of this whole experiential retail project. In Singapore, we’re testing different types of stores and concepts first, and once that’s successful, we will duplicate it into cities like Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles,” Kng said.