DEPET, the independent business project, closes a funding round consisting of €2.2M in equity and another €2.2M in the form of a participatory loan to further boost its expansion in the Spanish pet funeral market. The financial operation has been led by Grupo Nogar, Agroalimentación Mendoza, and Pérez Rumbao, with the goal of continuing to expand its crematorium network and advancing their modernization. DEPET expects to end 2025 with 12 centers in its network.
This marks a strategic and decisive step for DEPET in reinforcing its main business vision: to become the leading reference group in Spain within this sector.
To achieve this, the company seeks to acquire crematoriums, either wholly or partially, while relying on the professionals who have contributed to their growth. At present, the group operates 9 centers, serving 13 autonomous communities, which makes it the largest group by number of centers in Spain. The project aims to offer funeral services of a quality comparable to those for humans in 80% of the Spanish territory, providing families with the best possible service while ensuring a dignified and respectful treatment for their pets.
The DEPET team consists of more than 35 professionals spread across Spain, who every year support more than 25,000 families in saying goodbye to their pets. In addition, DEPET partners with more than 1,000 veterinary clinics that trust the company to provide their clients with a professional, compassionate, and respectful end-of-life service. DEPET also guarantees that every pet will be cremated either individually or together with others, unlike other waste-treatment services often used in the sector.
The veterinary market in Spain is estimated to generate around €2.6 billion annually, driven by the significant increase in the number of dogs and cats—which has doubled in the past 10 years—and by the phenomenon of pet humanization, as pets are now considered full members of the family. In fact, there are currently more registered pets than children in Spain.
This growth is further supported by European regulations, along with the Spanish Animal Welfare Law, which requires pet owners to cremate their pets after death.
Thanks to these two factors, over the past decade numerous entrepreneurs have shaped a sector that initially focused on waste management for veterinary clinics but today is capable of offering pet owners a funeral experience as warm and dignified as that for humans. DEPET aims to collaborate with these entrepreneurs to take the sector to the next level, moving from a largely local and heterogeneous service quality to a more uniform, nationwide offering—similar to what is seen in human funeral services.
The current market volume is estimated at around 700,000 cremations per year, distributed across 120 cremation centers in Spain, with expectations that this number will double within the next 5 years. Service prices range from €300 for the most premium option—which includes individual cremation and the possibility of holding a wake for the pet—to €60 for the most basic option.
Finally, it is worth noting that more and more insurance plans are including pet cremation expenses in their policies, offering policyholders a more dignified and compassionate way to say goodbye to their companion animals.
In the photo, from left to right: Santiago Bernal Piñeiro and Pablo Palacio Fernández-Coppel, founders of DEPET
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