Nicolò Frisiani, Co-Founder & CEO at Lupa, on Building the AI Operating System for Vets, Enterprise Sales, and Scaling at Speed

Hello and welcome to Writing Unicorns. Today's guest is Nick Loak, Piziani, Founder and CEO of Looper, who worlds first and prize ready AI operating system for Vets. Looper's raised over 25 million from singular, 2100 ventures, first minute capital and others. So, Nick Loak, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start by asking about your product because you just have to go to your website to see that you now offer a whole suite of features to help the factory practices operate in a better way. But I noticed that you really platform your note taker. So, can you tell us a bit about what version one of the product was? How you use that as a wedge and how then you expanded the product offering over time? Yeah, yeah, happy to. And thanks for having me, first of all. I found it enough actually the first version of the product has nothing to do with the note taking. We started this with the consumer angle. So, the mobile app and then the client journey with pet owners interacting with Vets. That's that's first a little bit of the part that we built. We had identified that there was a terrible problem in the tech setup of Vets. Had identified that part of the problem was the dependency on so many different plugins that bolt on top. So, we really told ourselves we need to build this whole holistic operating system. But where do we start from? And the answer that we gave ourselves was the client interaction. So, the online booking and reminder system, the mobile app for the client. So, the thing that really lives on top of the veterinary clinic to talk with the outside of the world if you want. And so, we spent a few months at the very beginning before we had even quit our jobs yet developing that. And then quite quickly after we went full time, we started pivoting already from the initial idea which was the study app. Let's penetrate the market and then expand sideways into the other things that we can build into actually what we need to do is expand immediately. Which was a bit of a big bet. But when we started going to market with with the with just the app, we realized that it's a bit of a unique market. It was also like right after the COVID boom of pet ownership. So, a crazy number of pets. And the big problem with that was actually that the cancers were if anything too full. The problem that clinics had was that retention. It wasn't how do I find new clients not at the time, at least. And so, when we were showing up with this tool that promises that there is a platform with also pet owners and you can find them there and they're going to book appointments, you're going to get more volume. No one cared. No one wanted that. It was just some extra plug in the plugs on top. They're really had 17 plug is the one 18th. And so we actually then told ourselves, okay, well, it's going to be a big journey. If we start this from scratch with the big system, but really what solves the problem here is that unified holistic experience. That's what they're struggling with. So instead of doing bit by bit and taking five years to get there. Let's just put our effort already from the get to build that unified experience. And that's when we started building the operating system we call it. Then the note taking just became a side thing after a year or half or so when we have started building the whole holistic system, we started building all sorts of functionalities in it. We realized actually there's a huge value added the note taking stuff and unlike most of the other things that have a big advantage by living within one ecosystem that negatively talks to each other. No taking is the easiest to take out and sell a standalone right. So obviously when you're building a whole system, you're selling the entire operating system is actually quite hard to go to market rights really hard to convince the clinic that they need to switch from their entire setup into a whole new thing that you're selling them. And so we started using that note taking as a little bit of a wedge product if you want to get into study in the relationship to actually show them the kind of tech that we have and the kind of things we can do. And then we sell the whole holistic system, but it became a later wedge if you want rather than the starting point. It's a fantasticly hacky first set of steps into sort of entrepreneurship, but how did you discover this set of problems like a you a pet lover, were you a vet, which your co founder of that. Were you sitting alongside that tell us a bit more about that. So actually finally nothing and not the three co funders are our vets. We do have pets at home, though, not even London. And no, it was it was a little bit random in so two of us used to work in consulting before this. We spent a few years at Boston consulting group. And one of the projects that BSUG was doing out of the thousands from the from the London office was on this topic. So for a p fund that owns a bunch of pet stuff and coincidentally on top of a bunch of pet stuff. They also have a veterinary chain. And so that's the exposure to the problem on the veterinary side came through. So really like you want to work project for these for these large chains, looking at their technology stack and figuring out actually they're really living in the 80s. But what were those first few steps like once you'd identified this as a problem. Did you go and speak to that. Did you go and you know sit next to them for a whole days at a time. Like how did you really establish what to do as your MVP what to build. It's a combination of different a few different things we spent a bunch of time just researching ourselves. Then we spent a bunch of time talking so literally walking into clinics and showing them a victim designs of what we had in mind to build claiming we had built it already and seeing if anyone would want that. And talking with with connections via friends via family to the veterinary world. And then actually I think was really useful experience for us to learn really what the need to agree to the system what you really need to build was my co founder. We we have shipped them for about a month and something with a veterinary clinic back home to be a receptionist to them. So he took I think a month of on paid leave from from BCG to to go to that and I was super helpful because actually being a receptionist for a month you really notice what the problems are and what needs to do. So combination of a number of things I think that was probably the most helpful one that that's a guy to that's all the way to pick in the thing we're doing. Yeah, and you mentioned that a lot of veterinary practices are now p owned because there's a bit of a roll up sort of phase in the industry. So how do you go about acquiring customers and what added complexity does it have having a p for kind of calling shots, but they're not necessarily the end user using products. How does that all kind of play out when you actually trying to sell it? Yeah, so I mean we are interactive with both types of customers, right, so there is some multi size their own bodies and still a number of independence that are not owned by fund. The complexity of a fund simply adds an extra element to the sales motion, which is pitching the enterprise functionalities and the data quality and data availability of the solution to the fund directly. So usually the way we do it is we still whether it's a its own by the fund or not own by the fund clinic. We still anyways pitch to the vets and to the users and to receptionist and to the head that what the actual functionalities the core systems are. From the I not take her to the I invoice writing to all the like intricate bits of communication between different functionalities in the operating system. When there is a p owner usually it's a multi site and when there is a multi site the big pitch then becomes what can you do as a multi site because you have loop versus other solutions or all the other solutions that you'll see the market mostly because they were built. Age is a lot right before this consolidation started so they were all built for individual independent clinics database configuration everything lives at individual clinic level. And so one of the things that that we are solving for is that that we have a flip architecture if you want to the database lives at the enterprise level. And so if you have a single site you're just trickling down a database once but if you have a thousand sites you can partition and trickle down the database the way you see fit the core configuration you see fit which allows you to have much more control and do much better analytics than you would if you had the the old school systems right so that's usually the pitch that we go in for the for the funds and then yeah I mean the complication is simply that the approval needs to be coming from both sides and in these kind of clients right so the clinics to be excited management needs to be excited for sure but then the the usually is the one getting green light to is a board meeting which for this they give green light so you need to also convince the people this is a smart strategic choice for them. And Nick Lowe has the vision changed at all since when you started you know I know that it was quite hack it the start and you made a few pivots but has the vision remained the same and could you talk us through that vision. Yes I think so actually the long term vision has remained the same and the vision that we work towards is the long and and quite ambitious but I think broadly split into three phases in our heads one is the one we're going after right now which is really trying to the technology issue of veterinary clinics and and growing enterprises behind them. The day to day operations of that's which can be like how honestly half of which can be automated because they still do loads of manual stuff and stupid use things that they shouldn't be doing they should be focusing on the fact you doing veterinary work so cracking that and meaning substituting usually seven eight nine different individuals as traditionally having the clinic with much more comprehensive much more modern AI do it and system. The reason for that is to build this veterinary enterprise ready AI operating system for pets as a global solution across clinics across across the world and across types of clients has always been step one. And how to get to the stuff one has changed a little bit but has always been set one and it's still there. We think also is that there is a very important step to right behind that on how do we help once we are with this clinics, we're working so many clinics and we have solved their technology issue day to day and in the end run operations to the clinic. How can we support them in monetizing their clients because right now clinics monetize clients in a pretty narrow vertical of just like brick and mortar healthcare services mostly in this cell, some parts on this side but it's been less and less because if our they can have taken a lot of that revenue away and it there's a big mismatch between how important the figure of the vet is in a pet's life versus so much money the vet actually makes for that. And so what we think we can do is help with that. So once we have built a technology infrastructure for the veterinary clinic because the operating system really actually doesn't involve the the pet owners quite heavily. They do interact with the better and I can via us what we think is we have built really infrastructure the technology infrastructure for the clinic or the groups to actually bring the pet owners into an ecosystem that they can monetize better whether it's recommended the insurance selling them food doing delivery at home of prescription doesn't really matter what the thing is right but the thing is a lot of opportunities for clinics to use that technology infrastructure they have given them to monetize the pet owners. So to tap into that that the owner stand a lot more broadly than they are right now. And then I think the third and the very important step is around what can you actually do from a if you want medical perspective long term once you have built this technology infrastructure right the purpose of building the technology infrastructure is not just technology so so data infrastructure. You are collecting cleaning and keeping the data for the screenings and right now these things are not using the data at all. They are barely even use it for doing like basic business analytics of what's happening within their business let alone you know properly an only rising it and selling it too far much to do proper research or anything like that right they don't do that. And I don't think we should be stealing their data and doing it for them. I think we should set up an infrastructure so that they can actually monetize that right so we set up the data infrastructure because we have set up the technology for such as involves also data could actually be handed so we set up the data infrastructure for them to actually be able to use and or monetize that data in ways that are not doing so driving research in AI in the medical field obviously in the veterinal vertical where we are in which actually very interesting within within different medical field is not really good. And different medical field is the only vertical in health care doesn't really have any regulations on data there is not even GDPR on pet data so you can do loads of stuff in terms of driving that that medical research and the innovation in the health care field within within our vertical. You need the infrastructure to be able to do that right now the blocker is not that there isn't enough data to build really cool medical AI is just a dead data is a mess and it's really hard to use and it's really hard to get. After you built infrastructure that's when you have the possibility to actually solve that problem as well so that's a little bit longer term step step three of the plan if you want. It's really cool and I think it's really interesting insight into you know you built a product your growth is insane what I can see from so a few articles and so people might sort of think well why do you need to raise money and I think you famously you raised twice last year very quick in very quick since that's the kind of stacked funding wraps so and then that's a great what you just told us is exactly the sort of reason why you probably felt that you wanted to really see the opportunity and invest a lot into this kind of data infrastructure. Can you tell us a little bit around that mindset of you just closed a seed round and suddenly you're kind of preempting a series a and very quick succession is that to do with just a need for capital or is it capitalizing on momentum was it preempted by a fund that came in and made an offer. You just tell us a little bit about how that all kind of came about and the motivation behind raising and such quick succession yeah so I think that probably the best descriptor you have put there is capitalizing on momentum is not out of a need we didn't need money we had just raised. So I mean yes our bird went up a little bit after we had just raised but we didn't quite burn for the entire pile of cash within three months and to be honest is still is there is right now a lot of momentum we're going really fast things are happening really quickly and I think there is a very strong argument for why speed really matters both in terms of the the product development and things we want to deliver and this long term plan is a long plan there is a lot of stuff to do and so we need to do it quickly. But also because of just like general market trends and competition in the various different countries whatever country you're looking at that we are expanding into there is a really solid argument of why you want to go there yesterday and not in three years. And so we don't want this momentum and so the way we have been thinking about it is that's for the short term the last two years and probably the coming two or three literally the only thing that we are optimizing for is is that momentum and growth we barely look at the you know burn rate unit economics and when do I actually need to raise based on cash having a back that this doesn't really work. If I have enough growth momentum to justify more money coming in there is so much stuff happening I could invest ten times more money than then what we have and it wouldn't really go to waste there is honestly a lot of stuff that we can do there is no lack of potential clients no lack of product build no lack of international expansion no lack of people that want to work with us. I think the blocker is just our time and resources and so if I can fix the resources whenever I have the opportunity to fix that time I can fix but the resource again and so I that's the logic behind the and raise. Yeah completely makes sense and you board some great investors as well which is which is great and then I'm just going to pick up one of head to questions but it's been such a fast journey obviously from the outside it just looks like everything's been playing sailing minus a couple of early pivots and things but we know that that's not always the case. So maybe you could share some of the harder moments what would have been the most challenging parts of this journey I'm sure it's been very exciting but just to reflect on the learning. To me that if you want I don't know if there is a single individual moment that has been tremendously challenging one that struck me the entire thing has been extremely challenging from start to finish I'd say that the big challenge for me and to me. My co funders has been that in all of the teachers are to this I guess it's pretty bloody obvious but it's it's not obviously enough until you actually try it and there's a lot of things that come with with building a company and doing everything from scratch that that make it complicated you know we had a few complicated hiring problems where you are you really need someone you need to hire them like yesterday and you can't find them and. And you spend all your time and all your resources trying to find a right candidate and you delay two months and lag behind on projects because you can't find higher and versus also the opposite problem of you have higher to fast at some point and then now suddenly you have people that don't really organization that don't make any sense that don't actually fit with the build of what they need to do. And so you find yourself in a complicated situation even on the other on the other and around the other spectrum. I would say people challenges have definitely be one of the things right on either side of the spectrum like I really want someone now and I can't find it versus I have if anything higher to fast and now I need to fix it also has been the most exciting part of the team is phenomenal and maybe it's because we put in so much effort because it was so complicated that the team came out to be phenomenal but it's definitely one of the challenges. And then one of the other things I would say is probably that we underestimated is how long some of the sales cycles with the larger clients are I guess it's the less than every single startup underestimation they go after large clients, right? Yeah, you think it's very stupid lessons not have learned before you started but yet still underestimated then things end up going really well anyways and you find ways to fix it. And I think that's the beauty and the fun of this is that there was always a way around that there is always a solution there was always something that you can do something that you can figure out which I find really so I think but the first class whenever you face one of these huge problems that I can. I don't know. Did you start off with kind of smaller clients that weren't P owned and then the sales cycle eventually caught up and you managed to land the bigger clients and when was the moment that you got a sort of multi clinic larger group that you'd been hunting for a while. Yeah, so to answer your question yes we did start with this model in reality are if you want our self defined ICP has always been multi site because there is things and doesn't have to be a multi site of 900 can be a multi set of five but like there is a lot of of the things that we built within the system that enable multi site functionalities to work in a way that others can't make it work. So we always had this thought of going. after a multi-size having said that you can't really ring a fund when you are start up with three people and have barely built a proof of concept. So first you start with the small independence. So we did definitely start with the smaller independence. We spent about a year just with small independence iterating on the product. And the first ones that went live, honestly, got blessed them. They went live on a really, really proof of concept piece of deck. And it really helped us actually iterate on that. And it was only after about a year, a year and a half that really we started getting through to to multi-size. We actually started having the functionalities that we had thought of buildings as the beginning of that enterprise data sharing analytics at the multi-size level. And then once we start to build on that, then we start to be successful with the with the multi-size. But it took about a year and a half because you anyways on top of the fact that you need to show these guys that you are working with someone smaller before there's a growth in the in the logo size of the clients that you go through for a reason, right? But there is also an element of product that made a big difference. Right? There is what we're trying to build is a very big piece of piece of deck. It does a lot of stuff. And we are replacing practice management software that are really deep in functionality. They might be really old. They might look really terrible. They might be super clunky, but they do a lot of stuff. And so to be able to replace them, you need to build quite deep functionality. So we had to first build all the basics, make sure that we have feature parity across the board and everything that we're replacing for for the test before we could actually start delivering on those fancy functionalities at the multi-size level. So there was even just a product element that we had to wait for about a year and a half or so before we restart the penetrating deck. Nice. And obviously you mentioned that you and your co-founder had been at BCG. Did you guys know each other before BCG? Yeah. We, so actually we met via BCG, but we met each other a bit more than a year before we started one of the events that BCG organized for the people that received an offer. And we really liked each other, the event is a state friends. So actually we were friends by the time we started. And then yes, we worked together there. And then with the other co-founder, who's the, who's the CTO now, him and I study university together. We lived together for years. So yeah, we were, we were just friends. Nice. And so obviously you have that consulting background. And my question is, what do you think we've had a nut, we've had founders of all different types come on the show and we've had a number who are X, B, X, B, C, G, etc. And they do seem to be amazing operators. What do you think the management consultancy experience gives you that has helped you with Looper? And also if someone's listening who isn't a management consultant, should they consider hiring one as an early employee to give them that kind of operational rigor? Let's get to the second question in a second. So I think it's the thing it taught us. I mean, there's a number of them. I think the most important ones that apply the most when you're doing a startup is a standard to excellence of output that you're producing, which they really ingrain into you because it's, you know, you are working on the output, I guess, deliver to big clients for huge projects. And it's really important. The quality of the output deliver and, you know, the silly things, but not having any type was anywhere. I'm making sure everything is perfectly aligned. And I think we have a bar to output out of that. Out of spending years doing that. We have a bar to output that's usually higher than people who haven't done this. And I think it teaches you mental rigor in problems holding. And if you want a bit of an elemental working heart, it's not that relatively long hours. So you are quite used to the right, the long hours. I think I'm working about twice as much as a founder, but still you are used to the relative one long hours. In terms of hiring consultants for the early early employees, I mean, we have done that, right? There is a number of consultants in our company. So I would highly recommend. I think consultants have a great toolkit that they learn in the first first three years in consulting. I think one of the things to keep in mind that the consultants don't learn in their job is sales. And depending a little bit on what we're recruiting for and depending on who you have in front of you, maybe they are natural salesmen and they don't need to have learned their job at work. But it's not something that you do in consulting until much later. And so if you're recruiting someone who was there for four or five, six years, they usually haven't really sold anything. They've just worked on the actual output and the actual content. And I think what I found, at least for myself and for Mate, Michael Thunder, we felt was one of the biggest gaps we had in our skills. Between what we were and what we needed to be successful founders was sales, because in the end you're selling all the time, right? You're selling to investors, you're selling to employees, you're selling to clients, you're selling on the whole time you're pitching. And that's I think something that we had to learn on the job as founders. So something that depending a little bit on what kind of profile you're hiring for. I would keep in mind it's not something that you necessarily do a lot when you are in the early days in consulting. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Well, thank you. That's really helpful. I think there will be people listening to it. I'm not consultants thinking of starting a company and thinking about how they would build up their organization, or there'll be people who are consultants who maybe gain a bit of self belief that they can go and do it as well. So, so, Nicolo, I'm going to move us on to our final two questions. So the first is up to your unicorn prediction. Are there any other companies that you've come across that you think have good potential to become a unicorn? Other than do, of course. Of course. It's implied that you're a future unicorn just from being on the job. Yes, actually, there is a company actually based in London called FairShot. They have built a AI tool for recruiting to basically replace the first step of recruiting with a very actually consulting and banking focused type of interviews or case studies and AI, the basic interviews in those case studies. I think honestly really really cool. They've built a phenomenal product. Is it similar to like Mercore in the US? Kind of, but different types, different niche of recruiting work. Yes, they are really aimed at the consulting and banking type of interviews. But yes, yes, exactly. It's that kind of stuff. Awesome. Cool. Thank you for sharing that. And then our final question is just a bit of fun. It's our dinner party guest game. So if you could have dinner with any three people who would be a bit. Yeah. I don't think it about this. So it's. I think there is very easy default answer, a bit mainstream of some tech giants that I would love to have a chat with. Elon Musk and Zuckerbergs of the world. I have a feeling that's too mainstream of an answer. So I tried to help with something a little bit more interesting. I would try and put together people that I can talk with about topics that interest me. So one I was thinking is Barack Obama to talk about the way in which they have managed to still have a personal life and raise children while both him and Michelle being very intense and successful as she does. I think that's a topic that's offered on my mind on how my partner and I would be able to do that. And I would love to talk with someone who has done it and clearly done it well. Then I was thinking someone to talk a little bit more, maybe like philosophical type of discussions. So like a Jay Fetty to talk about purposes of life and these kind of things that I think could be really interesting to have someone like that give their opinions and actually have a proper dinner conversation with just rather than just listening to them talk podcast. And then I was thinking actually to make the dinner a little bit more fun. So that's why we're talking about more life balance and purpose and something very boring dinner to invite someone a little bit more fun. So like Steve Carell because I find that he loves to have a little bit of a fun dinner actually. Yeah, that's a great, great answer. Steve Carell, I actually think that Jay Sheffield and Steve Carell are both unique answers. So in 230 class episodes they haven't been mentioned. I know Barabhar has been for a couple of people but obviously he's a he would be an amazing person to have dinner with. But yeah, I cannot believe that Jay Sheffield and Steve Carell have not been picked. So those are great answers. Thank you so much. That sounds super fun. And thank you for coming on. It's been really great to hear more about Looper. You guys were definitely one of the standout companies in 2025 in terms of fast fundraising, fast growth, just like coming sort of out of nowhere to some extent and being this kind of name in venture. So it's been really great to learn more about that journey and your your founding team how you guys came together and got started pivoting and then taking on big end to CrySale. So thank you so much for sharing everything and it's been a great episode. Thank you. Thank you for having me James. It's been a pleasure. That's it for this week. Thanks very much for listening. To stay up to date with the latest episodes, please follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. We also have a newsletter called Reading Unicorns, which is another great way to get every episode direct to your inbox. Please tell your friends about it and engage with us on social media. And we'll see you on the next episode.