TOPEKA, KANSAS, July 28, 2025 — The cohort for Plug and Play Topeka’s ninth Animal Health accelerator program has been set. The group comprises global startups focusing on animal health diagnostics or therapeutics, food safety/quality, packaging, or novel ingredients. Company champions will be participating from six different countries around the world.
Senior Program Manager, Anne Gunden, has been working to develop a new layout for the program, which will span 18 weeks. Programming will include pitch opportunities, introduction to mentors and corporate entities, a series of business development workshops, and cohort collaboration. In just a few weeks, the cohort will visit Kansas to tour local industry and innovation facilities, participate in the BioKansas Innovation Festival, and meet with local resource partners. Startups will participate in the final “graduation” event during Plug and Play’s November Summit, Nov. 18–20, at the company’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA.
Startup champions range from CEOs to CTOs to Strategic Partnership Managers and enter the program with unique focuses, interests, and goals. “Hoomanely is super thrilled to join Plug and Play’s 2025 Animal Health cohort. It’s one of the few places where Tech and AI-led innovations meet and benefit from deep industry expertise right from the get go. For us, this is more than just mentorship, it’s about building with the right people, in the right rooms, with the right perspective. For a company like ours that’s re-magineering a new foundation for connected, proactive animal care, that kind of alignment is everything! It gives us a leg up and keeps us from solving the wrong problem really well,” said Sai Supryia Sharath, Co-Founder and CEO of Hoomanely—a company based in Palo Alto but with team members in India, Vietnam, and Italy.
Ryan Gruzen, Founder of Pet Portal AI (Woodland Hills, CA) is also eager to get started. “Being selected for the Plug & Play accelerator alongside Hill’s Pet Nutrition is incredibly exciting—we’re joining a community of people who have dedicated their lives to improving pets’ lives, which inherently makes human lives better too. What I’m most looking forward to is learning from partners who understand that the best technology doesn’t make us less human, it helps us be more present and connected with the animals we love. Together, we’re building a world where pet parents feel more confident and less alone in caring for their companions.”
The success of the program continues to take place with the help of Plug and Play’s partnership with Go Topeka. Stephanie Moran, the Senior VP of Innovation for the Greater Topeka Partnership, serves as the champion of the relationship between Go Topeka and Plug and Play. “We are excited for our continued partnership with Plug and Play and to work with this talented group of startups. This opportunity to showcase the amazing resources in Topeka and the surrounding Region including the new LInk Innovation Labs is important to the innovation strategy for Topeka and Shawnee County.”
This will be the first time in two years that Plug and Play won’t be running a parallel program for Agtech startups. Instead, the team will host and co-host various in-person and virtual events to engage the ecosystem and help bring corporate entities, academic institutions, and farmers/growers together with startups. The team will also be helping to support Seed4Growth, an initiative that will bring together Fintech and Agtech entities driven by a mutual objective to bring innovative solutions to rural communities
“As the Agtech and Animal Health industries continue to evolve, our ability to stay flexible is what sets us apart. We’re excited to bring high-quality, tailored touchpoints to our startups, corporate partners, and investors—ensuring we grow with the industry and help drive it forward.”
Plug and Play proudly partners with the following entities for the Animal Health program: Go Topeka, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and Kansas State University. Corporate partners for the Agtech vertical include Western Growers Association, American National Insurance, Farm Credit Services of America, American AgCredit, CoBank, and Farm Credit East.
Learn more about the participating startups below.
Animal Health Batch 9 Startups:
Arterra Pet Science (Austin, TX, USA) Arterra’s mission is to elevate canine health and longevity through evidence-based functional wellness, while simplifying the lives of pet parents. Think of us as “AG1 for dogs” — the one supplement your dog needs for a longer, healthier life.
Branvine (Gardena, CA, USA) Branvine is a pet health company that combines science and technology to deliver personalized nutrition and body composition tracking for healthier, longer lives for pets.
ChemCode (Ankara, Türkiye) ChemCode provides a food safety system with a food loss prevention feature, utilizing a lab and specialist-free, portable, and mobile app-integrated system to combat the $1.25 billion worth of loss per year caused by mycotoxins.
Green-On (Gothenburg, Sweden) Green-On, making edible fats and oils bypassing agriculture altogether.
Hoomanely (Palo Alto, CA, USA) Precision health for preventive pet care and pet longevity.
N&E Innovations Pte Ltd (Singapore, Singapore) The world’s first natural and sustainable antimicrobial VIKANG® technology, upcycled from food waste.
Pet Portal AI (Woodland Hills, CA, USA) Pet Portal AI delivers trustworthy, AI-powered pet health and pet nutrition guidance, bridging the gap between worried pet parents and veterinary expertise through our no-hallucination technology. We enhance, never replace, the Human-Animal bond by democratizing access to accurate pet health knowledge, validated by veterinarians across 3 continents and multiple languages.
Petalife (Hong Kong, China) AI-powered pet health platform turning daily habits into early health insights — combining smart hardware and trusted vet support for preventive care.
Pointer Health (New York, NY, USA) Most advanced disease prediction system in medicine
RSLNT (San Leandro, CA, USA) Functional ingredients without the supply chain
testblu diagnostics (Berlin, Germany) We are building the most advanced and most comprehensive liquid biopsy tests for dogs that detect tumors when they’re still treatable.
Treat (New York City, NY, USA) Treat is solving pet clinical trials to unlock human health.
Vetabolics (Huntington Beach, California, USA) Vetabolics – A simple test to rewrite fates and give our dogs more tomorrows
About Plug and Play
Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform—connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we’re present in 50+ locations across five continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we’ve invested in hundreds of successful companies, including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi.
For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/
Plug and Play Topeka Contact: l.lebahn@pnptc.com