The problem
Large-animal vets are scarce across rural Canada: a farmer can face a 45-minute to three-hour drive for a simple call, while stretched practices cannot cover remote clients — a gap that threatens herd health and farm livelihoods.
How it works
Vet clinics join the VETSon service and give their farm clients a login. Farmers open the app to book telemedicine visits and virtual locum cover with their practice, and an e-commerce module sends prescriptions to distributors that ship animal medicines straight to the farm — with traceable records for regulators.
Pain points
No vet available for livestock emergencies, long drives for routine calls, and the cumbersome routine of collecting every prescribed medicine in person from the clinic.
Business model
VETSon sells through the practices: clinics join the platform and onboard their own farm clients, and the e-commerce prescribing flow (currently Ontario-only, given province-by-province veterinary regulation) takes inventory and shipping work off clinic staff. Pricing is undisclosed.
Challenges
Each province regulates veterinarians separately, so direct-to-farm medicine shipping works only in Ontario for now; scaling means winning over regulators province by province. The company runs on grant funding (OAFRI) plus early clinic adoption — institutional capital and a proven revenue engine are still ahead of it.
Funding
- Raised: MISSING (grant funding via OAFRI confirmed; no institutional round disclosed).
- Valuation: MISSING.
- Status: idea — early-stage bet with live pilots and ~10 clinics.
Latest — July 2024
VETSon announced expansion into the Yukon, partnering with the territorial government so Yukon farmers and horse owners — who previously had no livestock vet access — can book real-time remote visits with Ontario veterinarians, coordinate medication orders, and keep traceable records.