SYRACUSE — DocuPet, a Kingston, Ontario–based pet licensing firm, has opened its U.S. headquarters in Axa Tower II as a tenant of CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden. “We’ve created a service that is not just for communities and pet shelters, but for pet owners,” Grant Goodwin, CEO of DocuPet, said in his remarks to a gathering […]
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SYRACUSE — DocuPet, a Kingston, Ontario–based pet licensing firm, has opened its U.S. headquarters in Axa Tower II as a tenant of CenterState CEO’s Tech Garden.
“We’ve created a service that is not just for communities and pet shelters, but for pet owners,” Grant Goodwin, CEO of DocuPet, said in his remarks to a gathering at a Nov. 16 formal-opening event at Axa Tower II.
DocuPet currently has two employees in its Syracuse office, who are part of an overall employee count of 25, Goodwin told CNYBJ after the formal-opening event. The company seeks to hire as many as six employees for the Syracuse office.
DocuPet launched its first municipal pet-licensing program in Ontario, Canada in late 2014. Since that time, DocuPet has partnered with more than 30 municipalities and regions.
The City of Syracuse in September had announced that DocuPet would begin processing dog licenses for the city. Syracuse dog owners can register their dogs and renew their pet license online at syracuse.docupet.com.
When asked if pet owners in the Syracuse suburbs can also get them licensed through DocuPet, Goodwin said that, as of now, only Syracuse pet owners can use the service.
DocuPet also has U.S. operations in Boulder, Colorado and will be “launching soon” in Battle Creek, Michigan and Teller County, Colorado. Goodwin expects to launch additional locations in Illinois, Florida, Washington, and Colorado early next year.
The Syracuse office will handle shipping, customer service, and marketing operations for all U.S. jurisdictions, according to a news release from the City of Syracuse.
As a private company, DocuPet doesn’t disclose its revenue information, Goodwin said in an email reply to a CNYBJ inquiry.
START-UP NY participant
SUNY Oswego on Nov. 7 announced that it’s sponsoring DocuPet in the state’s START-UP NY program.
START-UP NY is short for SUNY Tax-free Areas to Revitalize and Transform Upstate NY, per the SUNY website.
DocuPet plans to invest more than $93,000 and create new jobs locally, an investment that “complements the CNY Rising regional strategic plan to revitalize the local economy,” according to a Nov. 7 SUNY Oswego news release.
START-UP NY is Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s offer to new or expanding companies and business ventures to operate completely tax-free in areas on or connected to campuses of the State University of New York.
Companies will have the chance to operate free of state and local taxes on or near academic campuses. Their employees will pay no state or local income taxes for 10 years.
In return, the businesses must add new jobs, providing an “economic lift” to the surrounding community, SUNY Oswego said when the state approved its plan for the START-UP NY program.
About DocuPet
Licensing pets is “extremely important” for animal welfare in North America, Goodwin said in speaking at the Nov. 16 event at the DocuPet office.
He noted that licensing fees help to fund between 60 percent and 70 percent of animal-welfare programs across North America.
“But beyond the financial benefit to the animal-welfare community, it’s the importance of registration,” said Goodwin.
Sometimes, he said, pets will wander off, and “more often than not” they end up in an animal shelter, which can be “overburdened, understaffed, underfunded.”
“So, if we can get registrations, then we can get pets home,” he added.
When people license their pet, they can do it online. They get access to a “home-safe service,” a code that is tied to every tag and is associated with an online profile, said Goodwin.
So when a pet disappears and someone finds it, he or she can look up the pet’s code online and either connect with the DocuPet call center or reach the pet owner directly through the company’s service as well, he added.
Cross-border partnership
CenterState CEO has worked with its economic-development counterparts in Kingston and eastern Ontario, Canada, as well as Queens University [in Kingston] and SUNY Upstate Medical University, to help create “soft-landing sites” to enable companies to expand their markets on both sides of the border,” Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, said in the city’s news release.
“We are excited that DocuPet is one of the first Canadian companies to utilize this partnership to open a U.S. location in Syracuse. CenterState CEO, in partnership with the City of Syracuse and SUNY Oswego and utilizing the unique startup ecosystem of the Tech Garden, has provided the company with connections to people, customers and resources they need to be successful. In turn, we have connected local firms that are looking to expand into Canadian markets with our counterparts in Ontario. We firmly believe this cross-border partnership will benefit both communities and are already seeing the positive results of this engagement,” said Simpson.
