Good Company

Otto Began as a Telemedicine App. Now the Austin Startup Runs the Front Desk for Thousands of Vet Clinics

Formerly TeleVet, Otto has raised about $50 million, counts more than 5,000 clinics as customers by its own tally, and has spent the past year layering AI into the reminders, notes, forms, and payments that run a clinic's day.

By Good Company Editorial Desk

Otto logo

The News

Most pet owners have never heard of Otto. Many of them have still used it, or at least been on the receiving end of it: the text reminder before an appointment, the digital intake form, the online booking link, the tap to pay checkout. Otto sells the client communication and workflow platform that sits between a veterinary clinic and its clients, and the Austin company has spent the past year moving quickly.

In August 2025, Otto unbundled its AI Scribe and sold it on its own for the first time, at $49 a month for two users, with a 21 day free trial the company calls the longest in the industry. In November 2025, it launched OttoPilot, an AI engine that sits under its main platform, Otto Flow, and turns exam room conversations, calls, texts, and emails into prioritized tasks and next steps. In December 2025, Hill's Pet Nutrition and The Veterinary Cooperative agreed to give clinics free access to the Scribe tool through their networks. And in January 2026, Otto rolled out Agentic Confirmations, which replaces one way reminder texts with two way conversations that can confirm, reschedule, or flag a question for staff.

The company underneath the launch cadence is a decade old. Steven Carter and Price Fallin founded it in Austin in 2015 as TeleVet, a telemedicine product. It rebranded as Otto in August 2023, alongside a $43 million Series B, arguing that the business had outgrown telemedicine. Zeynep Young, who became CEO in December 2022, now runs it, with Carter serving as co-founder and chief product officer.

Why It Matters

Veterinary clinics do not have a demand problem so much as a throughput problem. Phones ring off the hook, reminder calls eat the front desk's day, no-shows leave gaps in the schedule, and medical records get finished after hours. Otto's bet is that the communication layer, the dozens of small interactions between a clinic and a pet owner every day, is where that time is won or lost, and that one platform should run all of it: booking, forms, reminders, two way messaging, payments, care membership plans, and now AI notes.

That layer turns out to be strategic ground. Whoever runs it sees the clinic's demand in real time and shapes what clients hear and when. It has not escaped the industry's biggest players. Hill's Pet Nutrition and Boehringer Ingelheim are both Otto investors, and Hill's has gone a step further, putting the Scribe tool in front of its Hill's Connect clinic partners at no charge. When a pet food giant distributes your software for free, distribution stops being your biggest problem.

The market context is favorable. Fortune Business Insights valued veterinary software at $1.12 billion in 2025 and projects it to reach $2.87 billion by 2034, with clinics consolidating point tools into integrated, AI assisted platforms.

"Clinics don't want to duct-tape a bunch of disparate solutions together," Young said at the OttoPilot launch. "They want an integrated, intelligent system that actually DOES something, not one that adds more noise, errors, and manual cleanup."

The Numbers

  • Founded: 2015 in Austin, Texas, by Steven Carter and Price Fallin, as TeleVet
  • Funding: a $2.3 million seed round in 2019, a $5 million Series A in 2020, and a $43 million Series B in August 2023, for roughly $50 million raised in total (Dealroom)
  • Series B investors: Mercury Fund and Boehringer Ingelheim, joined by new investor Hill's Pet Nutrition
  • Customers: more than 5,000 clinics, according to the company's 2025 and 2026 announcements; more than 10,000 veterinary professionals, according to the company today
  • AI Scribe pricing: $49 a month for two users, $169 a month for unlimited users clinic wide, after a 21 day free trial
  • Results the company reports from clinics: 66 percent faster intake, a 50 percent reduction in no-shows, and a 40 percent increase in prescription sales (2023); teams fully using Scribe saving an average of 30 hours a month (2025)
  • Integrations: Cornerstone, Neo, AVImark, Impromed, eVetPractice, ezyVet, Shepherd, and Vetspire practice management systems
  • Market: veterinary software at $1.12 billion in 2025, projected at $2.87 billion by 2034 (Fortune Business Insights)

What It Means For You

If you are building in pet tech, study the sequence. Otto did not lead with the platform. It built a wedge, first telemedicine, now a $49 a month scribe that any doctor can try without an IT project, and then expanded into the full workflow once it was inside the clinic. The free Scribe distribution through Hill's and a national buying cooperative is the same play at a bigger scale: get the tool into thousands of exam rooms, let the saved hours make the case, and sell the platform behind it.

If you sell to clinics, note what Otto actually pitches. Not features, but time and schedule integrity: hours back, fewer no-shows, records done before dinner. In a labor short industry, the vendor who sells staff time back wins the budget conversation, and increasingly that pitch is aimed at burnout and retention, not just efficiency.

If your brand depends on veterinary recommendation, pay attention to this layer. Care plans, refill reminders, discharge instructions, and follow up prompts now travel through platforms like Otto, and the companies that own those rails, including a Hill's backed one, will shape how recommendations reach pet owners. Treat clinic workflow software as part of your distribution map, not somebody else's IT decision.

What To Watch

Watch whether the agentic features get real, unsupervised use. Confirmations that talk back are one thing; clinics trusting AI with broader client conversations is the bigger test, and Otto is pushing there first. Carter's framing at the OttoPilot launch was that "Pilot connects the dots so every message becomes motion." The next year will show how much motion clinics accept.

Watch the competition close in. PetDesk and other client communication tools are chasing the same front desk, while IDEXX and Covetrus can build similar features directly into the practice management systems Otto integrates with. Otto's defense is depth of integration and speed; its risk is becoming a feature.

And watch the money. The last raise was the 2023 Series B, and the backers include two of the largest animal health companies in the world. A Series C, or a strategic acquisition, would not surprise anyone following this space.

Sources

  • Otto, "TeleVet Announces $43 Million Series B on the Heels of Record Growth, Rebrands as Otto," August 31, 2023: https://otto.vet/televet-announces-43-million-series-b-on-the-heels-of-record-growth-rebrands-as-otto/
  • Otto, "Introducing Otto Pilot, Industry's First AI Engine for How Veterinary Teams Actually Work," Business Wire, November 19, 2025: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251119269890/en/Introducing-Otto-Pilot---Industrys-First-AI-Engine-for-How-Veterinary-Teams-Actually-Work
  • Otto, "Otto Launches AI Scribe, First Scribe Tool Built for Veterinary Care," August 13, 2025: https://otto.vet/otto-launches-ai-recap/
  • Otto, "Otto Partners with Industry Leaders to Provide Free Access to AI Scribe," December 3, 2025: https://otto.vet/otto-partners-with-industry-leaders-to-provide-free-access-to-ai-scribe/
  • Otto, "Otto Expands Veterinary AI with Agentic Confirmations," January 2026: https://otto.vet/otto-expands-veterinary-ai-with-agentic-confirmations-automating-appointment-follow-up-without-losing-the-personal-touch/
  • DVM360, "New standalone AI scribe tool launched," 2025: https://www.dvm360.com/view/new-standalone-ai-scribe-tool-launched
  • GlobalPETS, "Hill's invests in vet software company Otto," September 2023: https://globalpetindustry.com/news/hills-invests-vet-software-company-otto/
  • Dealroom, Otto company profile (funding history and founding): https://app.dealroom.co/companies/otto_formerly_televet_
  • Fortune Business Insights, Veterinary Software Market report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/veterinary-software-market-113167
  • Otto homepage (customer count, one subscription positioning): https://otto.vet/