Laika took pet shopping online. Then it opened the doors.

A sack of dog food is a surprisingly good test of an internet business. Someone has to stock it, sell it and carry it upstairs. The dog will need another sack. Laika Mascotas built its pitch around that recurring inconvenience, then discovered that some purchases still benefit from a door customers can walk through.

The Colombian pet retailer began trading in 2018 with a proposition that needed little explanation: order food, accessories and other pet essentials from your phone and have them delivered. By April 2026, it was reporting 22 physical stores in Colombia and preparing shop openings in Mexico and Chile. For a company financed during the rush into online commerce, that is a revealing destination: the neighborhood.

Laika's story is about learning which parts of shopping to remove and which to keep. Carrying the food home? Easily outsourced. Touching a harness, judging its size or talking to someone about a purchase? Those experiences helped give an app a reason to acquire shopfronts.

The business at the bottom of the food bag

Camilo Sánchez Villamarín, his sister Manuela Sánchez, Andrea González Bernal and Tulio Jiménez founded the business around problems familiar to pet owners: limited selection, inconvenient journeys and prices that varied between nearby shops and larger specialists. Manuela had worked at Rappi. The opportunity was to bring specialist pet shopping closer to the customer without requiring another expedition across town.

Its customers are households buying repeatedly for dogs and cats. The current Colombian storefront groups food, snacks, toys, beds, hygiene supplies and pharmacy products around those animals. It promotes same-day delivery alongside its app and physical shops. The mission, expressed on the website, is to accompany the moments people share with their pets. The commercial task underneath the affectionate language is making replenishment easy.

That distinction matters. A pet owner can postpone a new toy; an empty food container is less negotiable. Repeat essentials give Laika frequent opportunities to earn another order. Accessories and care services expand what a household can buy once it already trusts the retailer with the basics.

Laika sits between specialist sellers such as Agrocampo, general marketplaces and the local pet shop. Agrocampo also sells online and ships nationally, so a website alone provides little distinction. Laika's competitive proposition combines pet specialization, delivery, membership and increasingly stores. Its advantage has to show up in the complete purchase: the right item, the final price and whether it arrives when needed.

A membership built for the next order

Laika earns money selling merchandise and charging for membership. In January 2022, the company said members generated 70% of sales; the annual subscription was then described as costing US$20. That historical price is a snapshot, not today's checkout offer. The important detail is the concentration of spending among people who had made a continuing commitment.

“We're not trying to build only a transactional relationship with the customer.”Camilo Sánchez, speaking to Bloomberg Línea in 2022

A paid membership asks the customer to think beyond one basket. If the next bag of food is already predictable, a discount on future orders becomes easier to evaluate. For the retailer, the same relationship can reduce the need to win back the household from scratch every month. Neither outcome is automatic: discounts must leave enough margin, and customers must actually return.

By March 2025, Jiménez quoted a Colombian annual fee of COP39,900 and described stores as member-only, with enrollment available on arrival. Membership therefore became part of the physical shopping experience too. Anyone comparing the offer should use the current fee, eligible discounts and delivery charges for their own basket. A household ordering frequently has different arithmetic from someone buying one collar.

The company also connects membership to animal welfare. Its own 2022 magazine describes member purchases supporting shelters that rescue, rehabilitate and rehome abandoned dogs. This gives the loyalty program an emotional dimension beyond a price reduction. The practical promise still has to survive the ordinary test of a correctly fulfilled order.

The $48 million acceleration

Before the institutional checks, the founders put in equal amounts from their savings, Manuela explained in a 2022 interview. Friends and family followed. Laika joined Y Combinator's Summer 2019 batch, placing the Bogotá business inside a network accustomed to financing rapid expansion.

The disclosed financing became substantial: a US$5 million seed round in 2020, a US$12 million Series A in 2021 and a US$48 million Series B announced in January 2022. LAVCA records investors including InQlab, Soma Capital and Palm Drive Capital in the earlier financing, followed by Y Combinator and Streamlined Ventures in the Series A.

SoftBank led the Series B, with participation from JAM Fund, FJ Labs and Delivery Hero's investment arm, among others. Transaction adviser Cuatrecasas identified the recipient as Laika Universe Inc. The financing was presented as support for strengthening Colombia and expanding across Latin America.

What did the expansion cost? The funding tells us how much capital these rounds supplied, not how much Laika spent or what opening each city cost. That distinction is essential. A round announcement can finance inventory, hiring, technology and losses in different proportions. Treating the check as a measure of commercial success skips the work the money was supposed to fund.

Mexico exposed the limits of remote enthusiasm

Laika's early Mexican launch did not work as expected. In her 2022 Startupeable interview, Manuela discussed a mistake: the founders were absent from the country. Her lesson was that international expansion needed their presence, carrying the company's commitment into the local team. Opening a market meant more than making the catalog available at another address.

The same interview documents the modest work behind initial demand: messaging friends and family, using marketplaces and showing up at events, including fashion and car fairs. The logic is delightfully plain. People with pets also buy clothes and cars. A customer-acquisition strategy need not wait for everyone to assemble beneath a sign marked “pet owners.”

By March 2025, Jiménez said the Mexican operation had closed. He also described narrowing outsourced services after concerns about partner quality, concentrating on work Laika could control. His account named veterinary partner Vetas. A broad menu had an operational catch: customers could hold Laika responsible for another provider's performance.

For another founder, the useful lesson is to assign responsibility before multiplying the offer. Who fixes a missed appointment? Who handles a refund? Who knows why a new city's customers hesitate? Laika's account suggests these questions become more urgent as geography and services expand. The logo on the transaction is where a customer expects the answer.

Why the shopping aisle came back

Laika opened its first physical store in Cajicá in 2023. By early 2025, Camilo was explaining that stores let customers receive products immediately. He also said private-label merchandise represented roughly 10% of sales, part of an effort to offer more accessible prices.

Jiménez added a telling observation: toys and accessories benefited when customers could touch or measure them. Online, that had been a barrier. The argument for stores was therefore rooted in particular purchases. A familiar food brand can be reordered from a screen; an unfamiliar accessory may invite inspection.

The move also changes the cost structure. Shops need premises, staff and stock. Delivery requires its own coordination. Combining the two can improve convenience while adding management work. A retailer has to decide which assortment belongs in each location, how much stock to hold and whether the extra sales justify the expense.

There was a change in ambition's tempo, too. In 2025, Jiménez described slower growth that was more efficient and deliberate. That is a different measure of progress from multiplying sales several times each year. For a replenishment business, a customer who comes back profitably can matter more than an impressive opening-week crowd.

A second trip across the border

Manuela became CEO in August 2025, succeeding Camilo after leading retail and the store strategy. The appointment put a founder associated with the physical expansion in charge of the whole business. Announcements at the time described more than 20 Colombian stores and ambitions for 100; the larger figure was a plan.

In April 2026, she told Valora Analitik that shops were planned for Santiago and Mexico City, with Mexico representing a return after the earlier retreat. The same interview brought the arithmetic back into focus: she said higher wage costs had pushed back the company's internal timetable for reaching break-even. The 22-store footprint reported then measures presence, not profitability.

There are clear conditions for this model to earn its keep. Repeat purchases must be frequent enough to support membership. Local demand must justify inventory and service capacity. Physical browsing must produce enough additional business to cover store costs. Where customers buy infrequently, live far from delivery operations or find a better complete price elsewhere, the attraction weakens.

What readers can copy is the sequence of questions. Start with a recurring inconvenience. Make the first purchase easy. Give the next purchase a reason to stay. Watch which products customers still want to handle, and keep responsibility for service visible. Laika's next chapter will be decided in those details, one basket and one restocked food container at a time.