🇩🇪 Translation
Puppy Maja was close to Death – now her owner is developing a platform that quickly provides pet owners with medical information and initial assessments – essentially a digital health portal for dogs and cats.”
November 2, 2025
When Welf Löwe’s beloved Maja was still a puppy, she was bitten by a viper.
– It was truly a life-or-death situation.
Today, he has developed an app that offers cat and dog owners quick information on health issues.
When the accident happened, Welf Löwe called his mother Gisa, who is a veterinarian. Her advice was to immediately take Maja – a small Staffordshire Bull Terrier female – to a veterinary hospital.
– She remained hospitalized there for three days. Her head was so swollen that she looked like a hippopotamus. It was a really close call, but she survived.
Not every cat or dog owner can ask their mother for advice – especially not if she is the founder of Berlin’s largest private veterinary hospital. And not everyone is a professor of computer science, specializing in AI and data analysis.
Now, mother Gisa (77) in Berlin and son Welf (56) in Växjö have combined their knowledge and founded PetsVetCheck – a health portal that provides advice to cat and dog owners based on various Symptoms.
– You can see it as something like a digital health portal – similar to 1177 in Sweden, but for dogs and cats – if we succeed.
Based on her many years of experience as a veterinarian, Gisa Löwe has created a database that links pet Symptoms with various diagnoses. Welf has supplemented the platform with AI, so pet owners can quickly check what certain Symptoms might mean.
The health portal is available on the web and as an app – currently in German and English, but you can also chat in Swedish.
– We do not have the diagnostic capabilities of a veterinarian, but only the Symptoms that a layperson can observe. Therefore, we cannot provide a precise diagnosis. But if you are worried because your dog or cat is behaving strangely, we can help assess whether you should go to the vet immediately or wait and see.
Welf knows what can happen to a dog. Maja was not only bitten by a snake but had also eaten a stick and all sorts of inappropriate things.
– Maja is a family member we love – just like our previous dogs who are no longer alive and whom we miss. I have a very close relationship with pets.
PetsVetCheck has been accepted into the growth program of Företagsfabriken – a Swedish incubator for startups with great potential.
– I’m an IT nerd, and my mother is an animal nerd. So it’s good to have consultants who evaluate our work and push us in the right direction. Going to market and finding customers is not necessarily my strength.
The idea is for veterinary hospitals or insurance companies to pay for their customers to use the app. It could make processes more efficient by prompting pet owners to seek help at the right moment.
– I’ve just started meeting potential customers, says Welf.
It’s not the first time he has founded a company with the support of Företagsfabriken. Together with his colleague at Linnæus University, Rüdiger Linke, he launched Softwerk, a software company, in 2008.
When the company had almost 30 employees and a turnover of around 30 million Swedish Kronor, they sold it to Soft Cap Holding four years ago. Welf Löwe remains on the board.
– I am no longer heavily involved with Softwerk, but I support them as best I can. We also commissioned Softwerk to develop the first prototype of the app.
Over the years, Welf has founded other companies where he applied his computer science knowledge. He sees many advantages in being active both at the university and in business.
– When I explain what’s in the textbook as a professor, I can add: In my experience, two things work very well, but the third doesn’t. That gives me a different position as a teacher.
His experience also helps him better understand the needs of companies when the university enters into research partnerships. He was instrumental in Linnæus University specializing early in AI and big data analytics – research that benefits companies like Fortnox, Sigma Technology, and Volvo CE.
– We recognized this trend early. As a regional university, we need research that is applicable to regional companies.
That Welf Löwe is so entrepreneurial may be surprising, as he grew up in communist East Germany, where initiative was hardly encouraged.
– I believe the system suppressed us back then – and when the lid finally came off, we suddenly had all the opportunities. Perhaps we are enjoying precisely what was forbidden to us before – and that makes us who we are.
When the Wall fell, Gisa Löwe lost her job. Instead, she founded a private veterinary hospital, which later became the largest in Berlin.
In 1989, when the Wall fell, Welf’s mother Gisa was 41 years old. The research institution where she was head of department was closed. So she started her own veterinary hospital – and later also an equine practice.
– Many from her generation didn’t dare to start anew. But my mother did the opposite: She risked a lot – and succeeded. She is certainly a great inspiration.
Welf Löwe earned his doctorate in Karlsruhe, worked for a time at the top university Berkeley, and became a professor at Linnæus University in Växjö in 2002. Through PetsVetCheck, he now has more Contact with his mother in Berlin than he has had in many years.
– We talk on the phone at least twice a week – that wasn’t the case before. I enjoy it very much now that she is getting older but is still so sharp-minded.