How a quiet British innovation in malting is taking on the global probiotics market — and bringing investors with it.
UK animal-health business Tharos is opening its equity round on Republic Europe at a moment when its category is finally catching up with the science. After three years of live commercial proof in horses, the UK company is launching its patented barley derived natural enzyme platform into the canine market — a category that the world’s biggest food and consumer-health groups are actively consolidating.
Founded with a simple mission — to help companion animals stay healthy through what nature already provides — Tharos has spent more than a decade turning a British patent protected innovation in malting into a serious challenge to the dominant model of animal supplementation. Where most gut-health products try to add foreign bacteria, Tharos works with the animal’s own biology. It is an approach the company calls anabiomics, and it is starting to redefine what “natural” actually means in the pet-health aisle.
A market $4 billion big — and growing
The global pet and equine supplement market is worth more than $4 billion and is growing 7%+ a year. It is also a category being aggressively consolidated. In the past 18 months alone, Nestlé has acquired Petivity, Vetnique Labs has bought Lintbells (the maker of YuMOVE), Morgan Stanley has taken a position in FoodScience Corp, and Pooch & Mutt has acquired BIOME9. These deals are not random — they are a hunt for the next defensible, science-backed natural category in animal health.
Tharos’s 2029 revenue target would represent under 1% of that category. In other words, the opportunity is large enough that the company does not need to win a large part of the market.
Why pet owners are paying attention
Anyone who has lived with a horse or a dog knows the moment when something is not right. A horse loses condition through a stressful winter; a rescue dog cannot settle, or has the kind of stomach upset that follows the family through every walk. These are not glamorous problems — but they are the daily lived experience of millions of owners, and they are the reason the natural supplement aisle has become one of the fastest-growing corners of pet retail.
Tharos’s products — EquiNectar for horses, CaniNectar for dogs — are designed to address that experience at its root. Visible improvements typically arrive within four weeks: calmer behaviour, firmer stools, better skin and coat. For owners, it is a small monthly cost (£23 a month for dogs) sitting inside the £120 a month they already spend on food, vet bills, insurance and treats. For the animal, it is the difference between coping and thriving.
Real science, real outcomes
Most natural pet supplements still rely on testimonials. Tharos is built on real studies — twelve of them, across two species and eleven years.
In horses, peer-reviewed work has been published in the Equine Vet Journal, JMAB and Vet Times, with a presentation at BEVA in 2024. In dogs, a peer-reviewed mechanism paper was published in JMAB in December 2024, followed by five independent study populations.
The headline numbers tell their own story. In a Blue Cross pet-charity study, 80% of dogs reached ideal stool consistency by week four, up from 41.7% at baseline. In a live 81-dog professional field trial, every single recorded change in high-anxiety dogs was an improvement (p < 0.0001 therefore highly statistically significant). A UK Border Force working-dog study showed pathogen reduction sustained at two-year follow-up. Across every study, the adverse-event count is zero. Placebo-controlled trials, funded by this raise, are next, starting with a study at Nottingham Vet School on gastric torsion in dogs.
Three years of commercial proof in horses
Tharos’s equine product is used by more than 2,500 active customers on a subscription model with minimal churn. The repeat purchase rate is over 70%; the business has fulfilled more than 16,000 orders. It delivered £726,000 of revenue in 2025.
The customer roster is institutional in tone: every horse regiment of the British Army (including the Household Cavalry), the Metropolitan Police, and full approval from IVC Evidensia — the UK’s largest veterinary group. Distribution is genuinely multi-channel. D2C drives volume, with 30–40% of new customers acquired via veterinary referrals and the balance through social media. B2B partnerships sit alongside, including the Blue Cross pet charity and a global corporate white-label arrangement. The French B2B partner reached 6× original revenue inside one year, and the US business launched in March 2025.
A platform, not a product
What gives Tharos its scale potential is that it is a platform, not a single product. One patented natural ingredient supports digestion in horses (EquiNectar.com), dogs (CaniNectar.com), and — over time — a wider range of species and indications. It is manufactured in the UK by Muntons, a 150-year-old family-controlled malting partner.
The regulatory position is settled across the three lanes that matter: complementary feed classification in the UK (FSA), EU (FEDIAF) and US (AAFCO / FDA-CVM), with written regulatory advice on file in all three. This is a faster, lower-friction route to market than the pharma-style pathways probiotic brands often follow.
Four patent families protect the company’s enzyme approach; two are already granted, in the UK and the US. The malting process — capturing enzymes at their peak before the heat of kilning would destroy them — carries a 40–50% lower carbon footprint than the dairy-based probiotics it can replace. In a market where premium owners are increasingly carbon-aware, that is no longer a footnote.
The founder’s view
Douglas Dundonald, CEO of Tharos, puts the thesis plainly:
“For some time now, one of the answers to animal gut health has been to add billions of foreign bacteria. We believe the better answer is to support the animal’s own biology — at the very start of digestion. We have proven the approach in 2,500 horses over three years, and we are now ready to take that proof into the dog market, which is several times larger. This is a platform built on one patented ingredient, regulatory clarity in three jurisdictions, and category-defining IP. There has never been a better moment to back it.”
Why now
Premium, natural-led animal health is the precise corner of pet wellness where the largest acquirers are spending their balance sheets. The IP position is settled. The regulatory lanes are clear. The science is now peer-reviewed across two species. Tharos already has the institutional customers, the commercial traction and the multi-channel distribution to scale. What this raise funds is the next chapter — particularly the canine launch in the UK, US growth via equinectar-usa.com, and EU expansion mirroring the French Zenhorse partnership.
Back the round on Republic Europe
Tharos’s £165,000 equity round is now live on Republic Europe at a £9.1M pre-money valuation. For investors looking for exposure to a clinically-grounded, IP-protected platform in a consolidating premium-natural category — with the additional warmth of knowing the product helps real animals live measurably better lives — Tharos offers a rare combination of science, sustainability, and tangible commercial proof.
You can learn more and invest in Tharos.
Disclosure: This article is for information only and does not constitute investment advice. Investing involves risks, including loss of capital, illiquidity, lack of dividends and dilution, and should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. Capital is at risk. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change in future.