What you've heard is true: the pet industry is booming. According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), Americans will spend over $70 Billion dollars this year on their pets, and while most of this spending is on Food and Veterinary services, a considerable (and growing) portion of this spending is discretionary in nature. As we adapt to the new demographic reality that people are living longer and therefore less likely to have children in the home, more people are coming to view pets as literally 'part of the family', and because we all care about our family member's well-being, the focus of this spending is increasingly 'health oriented'. Premium foods are now positioned as 'healthy' and of course veterinary services are clearly health-oriented, but increasing attention is now given to the overall fitness and mental welfare of pets in their daily lives.

Pets are inherently social animals who unfortunately spend a lot of time alone in environments that don't provide a lot of stimulation, which is a negative contributor to their overall physical and mental health. Rascaltech has set out to solve this problem. They are a team of Engineers and Designers who love pets, and who want to address the lack of available intelligent and affordable pet toys that encourage mobility, interaction and cognitive stimulation and which can help busy pet owners create more invigorating activities for their pets.

Rascaltech's first product is Madeline, a beautiful and intelligent 'flower' that leverages special, proprietary technology which enables her to be aware of a cat's presence and motion, and can therefore intelligently play with cats using her laser. Using a mobile App, Madeline can be set to play with cats during specific 'playtimes', for example during the day when owners may be away, or during the night when owners may be asleep. Madeline can track the amount of 'playtime' with cats to help set optimal activity goals. Madeline also features different 'playmodes' ('tag', 'merrygoround' and 'jitterbug' etc.) that can elicit different behavioural responses from cats like 'chasing' , 'stalking' and 'attentive observation'. Madeline is designed to motivate cats of varying age and disposition in order to make them happy, healthy and more engaged.

Significantly, Madeline will be priced at an MSRP of $30-40 which is considerably less expensive than the few 'intelligent pet toys' currently available which tend to range in price from $150-200, placing them far out of range of the average consumer. Our goal is to make Madeline within the reach of all pet owners. Given that any pet toy will ultimately become a fixture in the home, Madeline is designed for the 'aesthetically conscious' consumer, those who appreciate design, and a little bit of whimsy. Inexpensive pet toys tend to lack any 'human endearing' aesthetic, while the very expensive toys tend to have a 'technological' look and feel. Madeline 'fits' within a family home as opposed to adding to the ever growing mound of 'technology black boxes' infiltrating our living spaces.

Rascaltech's design and brand philosophy is based around an 'elegant yet fun' aesthetic; to this end, they've also created 'decorative packs' which enable Madeline to be coloured and styled with different themes, thereby enabling her to fit into any home decor. In the future, Rascaltech plans to release a series of intelligent but inexpensive toys in the price range of $20-30 that interact both with Madeline and pets, in order to create a variety of stimuli and to hone in on natural pet instincts so that they can be happy and engaged every day.