Scratch Gets $35M Funding Toward ‘Care Now, Pay Later’ Patient Financing

Scratch Financial, which offers patient financing for veterinary and human healthcare, has announced a $35 million Series C funding round, which will go toward developing more technology for medical providers, a press release said Tuesday (Sept. 20).

The new tech will help providers “better connect with clients and manage the end-to-end patient experience.”

Los Angeles-based Scratch was founded in 2016 with Scratchpay, a “care now, pay later” product which helped pet owners afford pet care while allowing veterinary health providers to grow revenues and reduce accounts receivable.

The company expanded its services in 2020 to support more human elective medical providers like dental, optical and chiropractic services. The company supports omnichannel payment processing and cloud-based point of sale.

“Financial inclusion has always been a goal for our company — helping connect more people with transparent and personalized financing options to get the care they need for themselves or their loved ones,” said John Keatley, co-founder and CEO of Scratch. “This new funding will be instrumental in helping us create new products and better experiences to redefine the end-to-end patient experience.”

There have been other innovations for pet products lately, including Chewy’s recent promotion of the growth opportunities for its pet health offerings, PYMNTS wrote.

Read more: Chewy Sees Recurring Revenue Promise in Pet Health Offerings

Chewy CEO Sumit Singh said on a call with investors that the company was expanding its CarePlus wellness and insurance program, and Practice Hub, an eCommerce solution for veterinary practices.

CarePlus was launched in two states in June and is now available in 31 states, with a nationwide rollout by the end of the year. Singh said the company was trying to “iterate and learn” what it can in the space.

Practice Hub was rolled out in 2021 and has grown from 300 practices in March to 1,000, letting vets create, approve and manage medications and diet prescriptions in the same place, earning recurring revenue when the customers buy from the company website.