Mella is an innovative pet care company founded in 2019 by Daniella Morgan-Pascualvaca, Anya Babbitt, and Ben Saidman. Based in San Francisco, Mella’s mission is to develop cutting-edge products to make monitoring pets’ health simple and effective for both pet owners and veterinarians.
The company was born out of CEO Anya Babbitt’s personal experience with her rescue dog Mella, namesake of the company. When Mella developed a severe case of kennel cough, Babbitt struggled to determine if her symptoms were serious enough to warrant an expensive vet visit. She realized there was a need for easy-to-use at-home health monitoring tools for pets.
Babbitt assembled a team of experienced entrepreneurs including CTO Yale Zhang, COO Ben Seidman, and other technical experts to create Mella’s first product: an innovative thermometer.
Mella Thermometer
The Mella Thermometer measures a pet’s body temperature quickly and accurately without the need for invasive rectal measurement. The thermometer senses temperature via an axillary sensor that is placed under the pet’s front leg. Readings display on a paired smartphone app within 10-15 seconds.
The Mella app records each temperature reading along with the date, time, and pet’s identity. Results can be automatically shared with veterinarians for easy remote monitoring and advice. Mella uses advanced sensor technology and AI algorithms to achieve hospital-grade temperature accuracy without stress or discomfort for pets.
Biggie Body Scale
The Biggie Body Scale provides pet weight, body fat, and body condition metrics to proactively monitor weight trends. The scale senses weight distribution and body composition when a pet steps onto the smart pad. Results sync to the Mella app to track changes over time. Excess weight is one of the top health risks for today’s pets, so Biggie aims to help owners course-correct early before obesity sets in. The name Biggie comes from COO Ben Seidman’s beloved pup.
In addition to the Mella Thermometer and Biggie Body Scale, Mella offers other accessories to complement their product line. These include an Axillary (Underarm) Sensor, Infrared (Ear) Sensor, and Rectal Sensor as alternate attachments for the Mella Pro Smart Thermometer to take temperature readings. There is also a Charging Base compatible with both the thermometer and the Charlie Chip Reader. The Charlie Chip Reader is an upcoming product that will provide universal microchip scanning for easy pet identification. These accessories allow pet owners and veterinarians to customize Mella devices to best suit their needs and streamline pet care and monitoring.
Mella App
The integrated Mella app is key to the platform. Pet parents can create profiles for all their pets and record each health reading. The app provides guidance on collecting accurate measurements and graphs the data over time to highlight trends. Any concerning results can be instantly forwarded to vets for consultation. Vet practices can also access patients’ Mella data and incorporate it directly into their management system and medical records.
Mella’s founders bring decades of experience building medical and IoT hardware paired with AI technology. With the Mella product suite, they ultimately aim to provide proactive health insight, prevent disease through early intervention, avoid unnecessary vet visits, and strengthen the human-animal bond.
