# Josh Wais

> Josh Wais is the co-founder and CEO of Good Dog, a New York-based marketplace that helps people find and get a dog from vetted breeders, shelters, and rescues. A Wharton graduate and early Jet.com operator, Wais built Good Dog with co-founder Lauren McDevitt after they hit a wall trying to find a puppy themselves and discovered how opaque and scam-prone the process was. The company applies expert-backed vetting standards to a fragmented, roughly $70-billion pet industry, and has raised over $18 million from investors including Felicis, BoxGroup, Slow Ventures, and the founders of Warby Parker and Harry's.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Good Dog
- **Organizations:** Good Dog, Jet.com, Wantworthy, Qualcomm Ventures, Qualcomm
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Undergraduate degree, University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Good Dog, the first expert-backed marketplace for getting a dog from vetted breeders, shelters, and rescues., Raised more than $18 million in funding from Felicis, BoxGroup, Slow Ventures, Fuel Capital, BarkBox, and SV Angel., Attracted angel backing from the founders of Warby Parker, Harry's, Eventbrite, Flatiron Health, PillPack, and LearnVest.

## Career timeline

- **2006** — Joined Qualcomm in strategic business development.
- **2009** — Moved to Qualcomm Ventures as an investment professional.
- **2011** — Co-founded Wantworthy and served as COO, building Wantworthy.com and the Fresh iOS app.
- **2014** — Joined Jet.com, helping scale the company across product, strategy, and operations from 30 to 2,500+ employees.
- **2017** — Co-founded Good Dog with Lauren McDevitt after a frustrating personal search for a puppy.
- **2019** — Good Dog launched publicly and raised $6.7M in seed funding.
- **2020** — Raised a Series A (reported latest funding), bringing total funding to over $18M.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Good Dog, the first expert-backed marketplace for getting a dog from vetted breeders, shelters, and rescues.
- Raised more than $18 million in funding from Felicis, BoxGroup, Slow Ventures, Fuel Capital, BarkBox, and SV Angel.
- Attracted angel backing from the founders of Warby Parker, Harry's, Eventbrite, Flatiron Health, PillPack, and LearnVest.
- Helped scale Jet.com from roughly 30 employees to more than 2,500 before founding Good Dog.
- Grew Good Dog to a platform working with over 1,000 vetted sources and a team of around 170.

## Latest updates

- **2020-04** — Good Dog raised its reported Series A round, part of over $18M in total funding.

## Links

- Website: https://gooddog.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joshwais
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/officialgooddog
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialgooddog

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/josh-wais
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-16