Inside PetsTokyo

In a quiet corner of Iidabashi, one of Tokyo's older commercial districts, a small pet grooming salon opened in late 2023 with an ambition that belied its modest footprint. The founders weren't just building another neighborhood pet shop. They were testing a thesis about what modern pet care could look like.

Less than two years later, PetsTokyo Global operates nine locations across Japan and Australia, serves 80,000 registered customers, and has fully funded plans to reach 50 stores globally by 2027. The company generates between $10 and $25 million in annual revenue—figures it can verify and is willing to disclose publicly.

In an industry where growth often means franchising away quality control or chasing venture capital with unproven unit economics, PetsTokyo has taken a different path: methodical expansion of a vertically integrated model, funded through operations rather than dilution.

The question now is whether their approach—refined in one of the world's most demanding pet care markets—can translate globally.

The Founding Team & Philosophy

PetsTokyo was founded by a team combining deep pet care expertise with technology and operations backgrounds. The founding vision emerged from a frustration familiar to many pet owners: fragmented care where no single provider knows your pet's complete history.

"We saw pet owners maintaining paper folders with vaccination records, trying to remember which groomer their dog liked, repeating the same medical history to different veterinarians," explains Sugiura Hiroaki, PetsTokyo Hospital Principal Director. "In every other part of life, technology had made information portable and accessible. Pet care was stuck in the 1990s."

The founding philosophy centers on a deceptively simple premise: "Pets are priceless family members. We wanted to create a safe, warm harbor in the city—offering professional, gentle care that respects each pet's individuality and nurtures true wellbeing and happiness."

That statement, while it reads like standard mission-statement prose, actually describes a specific operational philosophy that differentiates PetsTokyo from most competitors.

The key phrase is "respects each pet's individuality." In practice, this means the company maintains detailed profiles on every animal in their system—not just vaccination records, but grooming preferences, behavioral notes, dietary sensitivities, anxiety triggers, and care history across all service types. When a pet arrives at any PetsTokyo location, staff already know its history.

"Most pet businesses treat each visit as a transaction," explains Sugiura Hiroaki, PetsTokyo Hospital Principal Director. "We treat it as a chapter in an ongoing relationship. The groomer who sees your dog today should know what happened at the vet visit last month."

This approach requires infrastructure that most pet care operators don't have—and creates switching costs that keep customers loyal.

The Integrated Model

Walk into a PetsTokyo location, and you'll find something unusual by Western standards: multiple service types under one roof, staffed by specialists who communicate with each other.

The company's revenue mix reflects this integration:

• Veterinary services: 30%—including the company's flagship Bakurocho Animal Hospital in Chuo-ku
• Premium grooming: 30%—full-service grooming with health monitoring
• Boarding and hotel services: 20%—including daycare and extended stays
• Nursery school: 10%—socialization and training programs
• Retail products: 10%—curated supplies and food

The 80/20 split between services and retail is essentially inverted from typical Western pet retailers, where product sales dominate, and services are add-ons. PetsTokyo treats retail as an add-on.

"The integration isn't just co-location," notes one industry observer. "Their groomer can flag a skin issue and have the pet seen by a veterinarian the same visit. In most markets, that's two separate businesses, two separate appointments, two weeks apart. By then, a minor issue might be serious."

This model requires more capital per location and more complex staffing—but generates higher revenue per customer and significantly better retention. Early data from Tokyo locations shows 85%+ annual customer retention, compared to industry averages of 60–70%.

The Footprint

PetsTokyo currently operates nine locations, eight across Tokyo and one international:

Tokyo locations (8 stores):

• Iidabashi (flagship grooming salon)
• Bakurocho (animal hospital with integrated services)
• Shibuya
• Shinjuku
• Ikebukuro
• Nakano
• Kichijoji
• Omotesando

The Tokyo locations cluster in residential neighborhoods rather than commercial shopping districts—a deliberate choice that prioritizes convenience for repeat visits over foot traffic from casual browsers. Average customer visit frequency is 2.3 times per month across all service types.

International:

• Sydney, Australia (Marrickville—operating as Pepper and Murphy's PetsTokyo)
• The Sydney location represents the company's first test of international expansion.

The Sydney Experiment: Early Results

When PetsTokyo announced they were opening in Sydney's Marrickville neighborhood, the decision raised eyebrows. Why Australia? Why not another Asian market with cultural proximity to Japan?

"We wanted to test whether our model translates to Western expectations," explains Sugiura Hiroaki, PetsTokyo Hospital Principal Director. "Australia has high pet ownership rates, a sophisticated consumer base, and regulatory standards we could work with. It's also English-speaking, which forced us to build systems that don't rely on Japanese-language assumptions."

The early results have exceeded expectations:

• 1,200+ registered customers in first 6 months (vs. 800 projected)
• $45,000+ average monthly revenue (vs. $32,000 projected)
• 78% customer retention after first visit (higher than Tokyo average)
• 4.8/5.0 average rating on Google Reviews (180+ reviews)

"In Japan, comprehensive pet records are normal," notes Sarah Chen, the Sydney location manager. "In Sydney, customers were genuinely surprised when we asked about their dog's grooming preferences or previous health issues during booking. They weren't used to anyone caring enough to ask. That became our biggest differentiator."

The Expansion Plan

PetsTokyo's growth targets are aggressive but specific:

• Next 6 months: 15 total stores (6 new locations)
• Next 12 months: 20 total stores
• By end of 2027: 50 total stores

Critically, the company states this expansion is "fully funded and contracted"—not aspirational targets dependent on future fundraising. The capital comes from operating cash flow and strategic partnerships rather than venture dilution.

What They're Building Next

Beyond physical expansion, PetsTokyo is developing infrastructure that leadership believes could reshape how pet health information works across the industry.

The company is building what they call "PetFile"—a comprehensive pet identity and health record system that tracks each animal across all service touchpoints. While PetFile currently works within PetsTokyo's network, the long-term vision extends much further.

"Pet owners change vets. They move cities. They travel with their animals," explains leadership. "Right now, that history gets lost. We think there's a way to solve that problem—not just for our customers, but industry-wide."

"We're not just building a pet care chain," says Sugiura Hiroaki, PetsTokyo Hospital Principal Director. "We're building infrastructure. The stores are the foundation, but they're not the whole vision. We're working on something that could benefit every pet owner and every care provider—creating value that extends far beyond our own network."

Announcements are expected in Q2 2026.

What to Watch

For industry observers, PetsTokyo represents an interesting test case.

Can a Japanese pet care model—built around integration, documentation, and lifetime relationships—translate to Western markets where fragmentation is the norm? Can a company maintain quality control while growing from 9 to 100 locations? Can the documentation infrastructure they're hinting at become something larger than a competitive advantage for their own stores?

The answers will emerge over the next 18–24 months as expansion accelerates and the company reveals more about its technology roadmap.

What's already clear is that PetsTokyo isn't content to remain a regional pet care chain. They're thinking bigger—and they appear to have the operational foundation, customer traction, and capital to back it up.

_{This profile is based on company disclosures, publicly available information, and industry research. The publication maintains editorial independence.}