Pet care

Clever Texas mobile vet clinic rolls out big plans for Dallas expansion

Rockin Pets, Rollin' Vets hopes to be in Austin and Dallas by March 2022.

Photo courtesy of Rollin' Vets

An innovative Houston company has closed a fresh round of funding in hopes of rolling its service out statewide.

Rockin' Pets, Rollin' Vets, a full-service mobile veterinary clinic based in Houston, has closed a $5 million equity raise with plans to expand across the state. Founded by Dr. Katie Eick, who is the company's CEO, Rollin’ Vets Group flips the switch on pet health care by bringing vets to its patients' homes.

This fresh funding helps Eick take that first step toward expansion. According to a news release, Rockin’ Pets, Rollin’ Vets expects to have a presence in Dallas and Austin by March of next year.

“This equity raise allows us to not only hire additional talent, but also increase our mobile clinic fleet, while expanding into other cities at an expedited rate. There is a vast opportunity to serve animals and people that need non-traditional veterinary care in other Texas markets. We are ready to tap into these markets and bring convenient, state-of-the-art care straight to pet owners’ doorsteps,” says Eick in the release.

Currently, the company has five mobile units staffed by seven veterinarians and 12 skilled veterinary technicians. The company’s capabilities include wellness and illness exams, in-house labs, radiology, end-of-life care, routine surgeries, laser therapy and dental procedures — all within the Greater Houston area.

Last year, the company raised $1 million in angel investment and crowdfunding on NextSeed. Patrick Lewis, CFO for Rollin’ Vets Group, says in the release that the capital was raised by a number of individuals, many of whom had prior investments in the pet care industry.

Eick founded her company in 2015 and was seeing steady growth as delivery and on-demand services like Uber and DoorDash increased in use and awareness of mobile services. Eick previously told InnovationMap that the pandemic really cemented the efficacy of mobile services.

While the company is focused on a Texas expansion for now, it's been in Eick's plan to expand even more broadly for a while.

"We're aiming to be a nationwide brand," Eick previously told InnovationMap.

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This story originally appeared on our sister site InnovationMap.

entrepreneurship starts here

Dallas leads on 2026 list of the best big cities to start a business

Photo by Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash

Dallas ranked 11th in the U.S. in 2026, and previously ranked 16th in 2025.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is showing its strong entrepreneurial spirit after Dallas and five of its neighbors appeared on WalletHub's new list of the best large U.S. cities for starting a business in 2026. Dallas leads the charge in North Texas as the No. 11 best city nationwide.

The annual report compared 100 U.S. cities based on 19 relevant metrics across three key dimensions: business environment, access to resources, and costs. Factors that were analyzed include five-year business survival rates, job growth comparisons from 2020 and 2024, population growth of working-age individuals aged 16-64, office space affordability, and more.

Florida cities locked out the top five best places in America for starting a new business: Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Hialeah, and St. Petersburg.

Dallas' business environment ranked as the fifth-best in the country, and the city ranked 45th for its "access to resources," and 64th in the "business costs" category. Dallas also topped a separate ranking of cities with the longest average workweeks nationwide.

Here's how Dallas compared in some of the other rankings in the study:

No. 24 – Numerical small business growth
No. 29 – Financing accessibility
No. 40 – Labor costs
No. 55 – Cost of living

Elsewhere in North Texas, Irving ranked No. 16 nationally, followed by Arlington (No. 23), Fort Worth (No. 30), Plano, (No. 35), and Garland (No. 65).

Earlier this year, WalletHub declared Texas the third-best state for starting a business in 2026, and several DFW cities have seen robust growth after being recognized among the top 20 best career hotspots in the U.S. WalletHub also ranked Plano the 7th best U.S. city for finding a job.

Only seven other Texas cities earned spots in the report: Austin (No. 24), Houston (No. 26), Lubbock (No. 36), Corpus Christi (No. 39), San Antonio (No. 64), El Paso (No. 67), and Laredo (No. 76).

Austin tied with Boise, Idaho and Fresno, California for the highest average growth in the number of small businesses nationally, while Corpus Christi and Laredo topped a separate list of the U.S. cities with the most accessible financing.

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