Christopher Gonzalez, Dave Comisky and Jim Camut consider their dogs to be their best friends, and they wanted to share that unconditional love with other dog owners. “Without our dogs, we wouldn’t be anywhere,” Gonzalez admits. “We’ve been longtime neighbors and friends here in Washington, D.C., and relied on each other heavily to take care of each other’s pets.”
They developed Barkly, offering on-demand dog walking services for dog owners in the Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. areas. Barkly background-checks, insures, and trains its walkers for superior service and includes features like GPS mapping and pick up/drop off notifications through its custom smartphone app.
The Barkly team worked with Hal Shelton, who met with the co-founders monthly to discuss raising capital and scaling the business. "Hal is a seasoned investor and his experience on sitting on that side of the negotiating table was invaluable for our business," co-founder David Comisky says. "He helped us navigate raising our first outside capital and scale our business quickly to three markets."
“We wouldn’t be here as entrepreneurs without his guidance,” Gonzalez says. “He is as invested in our company’s success and has experiences helping small companies scale rapidly.”