Startup Deep Dive : Dogsee Chew — a Himalayan chew business that barely sells in the country where it’s made

Dogsee Chew makes dog treats out of a Himalayan cheese that villagers in Nepal once threw away, and it now sells that cheese in more than 30 countries to what the company describes as over a million pet parents, as reported by The Wire in May 2026. Yet in India, the country where it manufactures, the brand is close to invisible: domestic sales are about 3% of revenue, co-founder Bhupendra Khanal told Indian Retailer in May 2026, with the remaining 97% exported.

The company raised $8 million (about ₹69.4 crore) in a Series B round in February 2025, as reported by Inc42 and Entrackr, at almost exactly the moment its own filings showed revenue had fallen for a second straight year. Investors were betting on a category Dogsee Chew effectively invented for Western pet owners: a rawhide-free dog chew made from dried yak-and-cow milk cheese, or chhurpi, that its founder first noticed village dogs fighting over on a trek in the Himalayas.

Quick facts

What they do

Dogsee Chew designs, manufactures and exports natural, vegetarian dog and cat treats built around chhurpi, a hard, dried cheese made traditionally from yak or cow milk in the Himalayas. The company positions its core product as a rawhide-free, preservative-free alternative to conventional rawhide chews, sold as a dental and wellness treat rather than a snack. Its customers are, overwhelmingly, pet parents outside India: the brand’s biggest markets are the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Japan, sold mostly through e-commerce platforms such as Amazon Global, Chewy and Walmart, according to Indian Retailer’s May 2026 interview with the founders. In India, it sells through quick-commerce and e-commerce plus a small footprint of pet stores and veterinary clinics in Bengaluru, Mumbai, the National Capital Region, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. The product range has widened from a single chew SKU in 2015 to 20-30 SKUs by 2026, spanning chews, dental treats, training treats, puffed snacks and a functional-supplement line called Dogsee Activet Plus+, plus a lower-priced dental sub-brand, Denties.

The origin

Bhupendra Khanal did not set out to build a pet-food company. He came to India in 2001 from Nepal on a scholarship to study engineering in Durgapur, then worked as a business analyst at Global Analytics in Chennai from 2005, before co-founding the analytics consultancy Marketelligent in September 2007, which was later acquired by Brillio in October 2014. In 2009 he co-founded a second company, the Bengaluru social-media analytics firm Simplify360, with five friends. He was still its chief executive when, on a trek through the Himalayas, he watched local stray dogs with unusually shiny coats and clean teeth chewing on chhurpi, the smoked, dried cheese that villagers sometimes discarded because it was too hard for people to eat easily. Villagers told him the dogs preferred it to anything else they were fed. Khanal quit Simplify360’s top job and founded Khanal Foods in 2015 with his wife, Sneh Sharma, to turn that village habit into a packaged product for pet owners who had never heard of chhurpi. The brand’s name, and its Cannes 2026 red-carpet theme “An Ode to Mowgli”, trace back to the couple’s own dog of ten years, Mowgli, who inspired the venture and later became its mascot, as the co-founders told Indian Retailer and The Wire in 2026.

The struggle years

The first problem was not manufacturing or distribution. It was that the entire category did not exist. “When we started, Himalayan yak chews were not a recognised category globally,” Khanal told The Hans India in 2026, describing years spent explaining to pet owners, retailers and regulators abroad what chhurpi even was, and persuading them it was safe and worth a premium price over cheaper rawhide alternatives. That education cycle meant Dogsee Chew ran for roughly six years on very little outside capital: Inc42 reported that before its first institutional round in November 2021, the company had raised only around $297,700 in an earlier angel round. There was no dramatic near-death event on the record, but there is a harder number: after its Series A and years of build-out, revenue fell from ₹98 crore in FY23 to ₹53.76 crore in FY24, a drop of roughly 45%, with a net loss of ₹27.73 crore that year, according to Entrackr’s reporting on the company’s financial filings. Revenue then fell again in FY25, to about ₹35.6 crore, a further decline of roughly 35% year-on-year, per Inc42’s analysis of the same filings. A company that had scaled to a nine-figure crore revenue run-rate lost nearly two-thirds of it in two years, even as it kept raising fresh equity.

• 2015-2021: bootstrapped on roughly $297,700 in angel funding while building an unfamiliar product category abroad (Inc42, November 2021).
• FY23 to FY24: revenue fell from ₹98 crore to ₹53.76 crore, a decline of about 45%, with a ₹27.73 crore net loss in FY24 (Entrackr, February 2025).
• FY24 to FY25: revenue fell further to about ₹35.6 crore, down roughly 35% year-on-year, even as the company closed a Series B round (Inc42, 2026).

The turning point

The clearest before-and-after moment is 3 November 2021, when Dogsee Chew closed its first institutional round: $7 million in a Pre-Series A led by Sixth Sense Ventures, as reported by Inc42. Before that date, the company had leaned on roughly $297,700 of angel money for six years. At the time of the round, Inc42 reported the company was already moving over 100 tonnes of product a month across more than 5,000 retail stores in 30 countries with over 30 SKUs — proof that the demand existed, even without serious growth capital behind it. Sixth Sense Ventures chief executive Nikhil Vora said the fund liked “Dogsee’s approach of establishing their presence in the developed markets while tapping into the India opportunity.” The round mattered less for its size than for what it unlocked: a Series A of ₹50 crore (about $6.7 million) followed within three months, in January 2022, led by pharmaceutical major Mankind Pharma marking its first entry into pet food, with Sixth Sense returning as a co-investor. Institutional validation, not a single dramatic event, is what moved Dogsee Chew from a bootstrapped export curiosity to a company that could raise a Series B in the middle of a two-year revenue decline three years later.

The money behind it

• Angel round (undated, pre-2021): about $297,700 raised before any institutional investor came in (Inc42, November 2021).
• Pre-Series A — 3 November 2021: $7 million led by Sixth Sense Ventures, Dogsee Chew’s first institutional round (Inc42).
• Series A — January 2022: ₹50 crore (about $6.7 million) led by Mankind Pharma, with existing backer Sixth Sense Ventures also participating (Inc42; Entrackr).
• Series B — 20 February 2025: $8 million (about ₹69.4 crore) led by Ektha.com, with Shivanssh Holdings and the Poddar Family Office participating (Inc42; Entrackr).
• Total raised: $22 million across four rounds as of February 2025 (Inc42’s company profile; Entrackr).
• Valuation: not publicly disclosed at any round, per Entrackr’s February 2025 report on the Series B.

What each backer changed: Sixth Sense Ventures’ 2021 cheque was the company’s first outside validation after years of bootstrapping and funded expansion into developed export markets. Mankind Pharma’s 2022 investment brought a large, listed Indian pharma and FMCG player into pet nutrition for the first time and was earmarked for brand-building, R&D and distribution, according to Inc42’s report on the round. The 2025 Series B, led by Ektha.com, was aimed squarely at manufacturing capacity and the United States and Canada, funding new production facilities and a stronger Amazon Global Selling strategy, per Inc42 and Entrackr’s coverage of the round.

How it makes money

Dogsee Chew is a manufacturer-exporter that sells finished, branded pet treats rather than raw ingredients. Its supply chain starts with chhurpi and other cheese sourced from Himalayan community farmers, which the company processes and packages at its own facilities, including a two-acre unit near Bengaluru allotted under a Karnataka government (KIADB) industrial scheme, with a further 20 acres tentatively approved in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, for what the founders describe to Indian Retailer as a plan to build the world’s largest dedicated cheese-based dog-chew factory. Finished goods move to customers mostly through e-commerce: Amazon Global Selling in the US, UK, EU and Japan, plus listings on Chewy and Walmart, supplemented by offline distribution through pet specialty stores and veterinary clinics rather than mass grocery retail, a channel strategy the founders say they will only revisit after the business crosses ₹1,000 crore in revenue.

• Revenue comes from direct product sales (chews, dental treats, training treats, toppers, supplements) at a premium price point versus commodity rawhide chews.
• Roughly 60% of global sales are online and 40% offline, per the founders’ account to Indian Retailer in May 2026.
• The company reports close to $500,000 a month in revenue through Amazon in the US alone, as stated to Indian Retailer in May 2026 — a company-reported figure, not independently audited.
• Costs sit in raw-material sourcing from Himalayan farming communities, processing and quality certification for export markets, international freight, and Amazon/marketplace selling fees; the widening and then narrowing losses in FY24 and FY25 suggest margin has been under pressure as revenue fell (Entrackr; Inc42).
• The part outsiders get wrong: this is not a domestic Indian pet-food brand with an export side-business. By the founders’ own account, India is roughly 3% of sales — the business is built for developed export markets, manufactured in India almost incidentally.

The numbers

Dogsee Chew’s revenue has moved in the wrong direction for two consecutive years even as it kept raising outside capital, based on financial filings reported by Entrackr and analysed by Inc42.

• FY23 to FY24: revenue down about 45%, from ₹98 crore ($10.2 million at $1≈₹96.0) to ₹53.76 crore (Entrackr, February 2025).
• FY24 to FY25: revenue down a further 34.7%, to about ₹35.6-35.7 crore, per Inc42’s financial breakdown.
• FY25 total expenses were about ₹54.7 crore against ₹35.6 crore of revenue, an implied net margin of roughly -55.7% (Inc42).
• The FY24 net loss of ₹27.73 crore was, in Entrackr’s words, “almost flat” against the prior year, meaning the company was already loss-making before the sharpest revenue decline hit.

Where the money comes from

The surprise in Dogsee Chew’s numbers is not which country buys the most — it is how lopsided the split is for a company headquartered and manufacturing in India.

• Geography: about 97% of revenue is international and about 3% is from India, per the founders’ account to Indian Retailer in May 2026.
• Top single market: the United States is Dogsee Chew’s largest market by the company’s own account, having overtaken the United Kingdom, which was historically its top market (Indian Retailer, May 2026).
• Other developed markets: the European Union and Japan are named as core markets, with the founders telling Indian Retailer and D2C Insider Pulse (both May 2026) that the company holds a large share of the yak-cheese chew category specifically in Japan and Europe — a company-stated figure that this piece is not treating as independently verified.
• Channel split: about 60% of global sales are online (Amazon Global Selling, Chewy, Walmart) versus 40% offline, per Indian Retailer.
• Category split: the core chhurpi chew remains the anchor product, with food toppers, supplements and the Denties dental sub-brand named as the fastest-growing newer categories, and cat treats and supplements planned for launch in the October-December 2026 quarter (Indian Retailer, May 2026).
• Export ranking: Dogsee Chew describes itself as India’s fourth-largest pet food exporter, a claim repeated in Inc42’s and Entrackr’s coverage of its funding rounds without independent ranking data cited by either outlet.

The risks

• Revenue concentration in export markets: with about 97% of sales outside India and the US as the single largest market, the company is exposed to US import duties, freight-cost swings, marketplace policy changes on Amazon, and any slowdown in discretionary pet spending in developed economies — channels the founders themselves flagged as central to the FY25 Series B’s use of funds (Inc42; Entrackr).
• A financial track record that has moved the wrong way twice: revenue nearly halved from FY23 to FY24 and fell by a further third in FY25, with losses of ₹27.73 crore and ₹19.8 crore in those two years respectively; the Series B closed in the middle of that decline, which means the FY26 numbers, not yet public, will be the real test of whether fresh capital has stabilised the business (Entrackr; Inc42).
• Dependence on a handcrafted, community-sourced raw material: chhurpi is still sourced from Himalayan farming communities rather than an industrialised commodity supply chain, which the company itself frames as a sustainability strength but which also means output can be exposed to seasonal availability, quality variance and the difficulty of scaling a traditionally handmade product to meet a stated ambition of building “the world’s largest” dedicated facility for it (The Hans India; Indian Retailer).

The takeaway

Dogsee Chew’s story is less about a single dramatic rescue and more about how long a genuinely new product category takes to pay off, and how uneven that payoff can be even after the market accepts it. The company spent roughly six years convincing pet owners on the other side of the world that a Himalayan village snack for dogs was worth a premium price, before a single institutional cheque in November 2021 unlocked two more rounds and $22 million in total capital. But acceptance of the category did not translate into steady growth: revenue fell for two straight years right through a Series B raise, a reminder that funding rounds measure investor conviction about the future, not the health of the business today. The transferable lesson is not “invent a category and wait” — it is that inventing the category is only the first, and possibly the easier, half of the job; converting it into durable, profitable revenue at scale is the harder one, and the numbers so far show that work still under way.

Frequently asked questions

What does Dogsee Chew actually sell?

Natural, vegetarian dog and cat treats built primarily around chhurpi, a dried Himalayan cheese, sold as dental chews, training treats, toppers and supplements, mostly to pet owners in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and Japan.

Who founded Dogsee Chew and when?

Bhupendra Khanal and Sneh Sharma founded Khanal Foods, the company behind the Dogsee Chew brand, in Bengaluru in 2015, after Khanal noticed Himalayan village dogs chewing on discarded chhurpi cheese during a trek.

How much funding has Dogsee Chew raised?

About $22 million across four rounds as of February 2025: an early angel round of roughly $297,700, a $7 million Pre-Series A in November 2021 led by Sixth Sense Ventures, a ₹50 crore Series A in January 2022 led by Mankind Pharma, and an $8 million Series B in February 2025 led by Ektha.com, according to Inc42 and Entrackr.

Is Dogsee Chew profitable?

No. It reported a net loss of ₹27.73 crore in FY24 and ₹19.8 crore in FY25, on revenue that fell from ₹98 crore in FY23 to about ₹35.6 crore in FY25, per Entrackr’s and Inc42’s reporting on its financial filings.

Is Dogsee Chew planning an IPO?

The founders have said they are targeting about ₹1,000 crore in annual revenue by 2028 and are preparing for an Indian IPO around 2028-2029, with a possible later US listing, according to interviews with Indian Retailer and D2C Insider Pulse published in May 2026. Neither the revenue target nor the IPO timeline has been independently confirmed.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Inc42, company profile, “Dogsee Chew — Funding, Revenue & Investors” (2026)
• Inc42, “Dogsee Chew Financials 2026 – Revenue, P&L & Cash Flow” (2026)
• Inc42, “Pet Food Startup Dogsee Chew Raises $7 Mn From Sixth Sense Ventures” (3 November 2021)
• Inc42, “Dogsee Chew Bags INR 50 Cr For Producing 100% Vegetarian Pet Treats” (January 2022)
• Inc42, “Pet Food Brand Dogsee Chew Raises $8 Mn To Scale Global Operations” (February 2025)
• Entrackr, “Dogsee Chew raises $8 Mn in Series B round” (20 February 2025)
• Indian Retailer, “Dogsee Chew Targets Rs 1000 Cr Turnover; Plans IPO in 2 Years” (May 2026)
• Indian Retailer, “Dogsee Chew Plans IPO as Pet Wellness Business Expands Globally” (19 May 2026)
• D2C Insider Pulse, “Dogsee Chew Targets ₹1,000 Crore Revenue Milestone as Global D2C Pet Wellness Brand Eyes IPO” (19 May 2026)
• The Hans India, “Dogsee Chew built global pet wellness brand from Himalayan roots, say co-founders” (2026)
• The Wire (PTI), “India’s Homegrown Pet Wellness Brand Dogsee Chew Makes a Historic Cannes 2026 Debut” (16 May 2026)
• Business Standard, “Startup Street: Why Bhupendra Khanal quit Simplify360’s CEO post to start pet food brand Dogsee Chew” (15 October 2015)
• Tracxn company data on Dogsee Chew / Khanal Foods Private Limited (2026), for approximate headcount

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