NOVEMBER 9 • 2023 | 37
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“The company has evolved so drastically 
over the last eight-and-a-half years,
” Zuppke 
explains. “It’s been a dream for me as a mar-
keter and as an entrepreneur.
”
In just one year of working at Whisker, 
Zuppke helped grow the then-15-year-old 
company by 80%. “It was a wake-up call for 
everybody on the team of what opportunity 
was in front of us,
” he explains.
Having Zuppke originally join as the 
25th employee, Whisker now employs 485 
individuals, as well as an additional 100 full-
time contract-to-hire employees. Although 
the company doesn’t publicly share its rev-
enue, Zuppkle says it’s grown by more than 
30 times since his start.
As for what fuels Whisker’s continuous 
growth, Zuppke says the answer is simple.
“We are the first ones to invent a grav-
ity-driven self-cleaning litter box,
” he 
explains, “and the reason that’s a better solu-
tion than a rake-driven litter box is because 
it separates the waste better from the dirty 
litter to keep a clean bed of litter each time.
”

REAL-LIFE IMPACT
The WiFi-enabled Litter-Robot also comes 
with an intuitive smartphone app that 
Zuppke says helped save the life of his cat, 
Lexie, in 2018. “Our cat got a UTI, and the 
only reason we knew about it is because of 
the Litter-Robot notifications,” he recalls.
For female cats in particular, UTIs can 
quickly turn life-threatening. “We rushed 
our cat to the vet, and we were able to get 
the UTI unblocked proactively,” he says.
Zuppke isn’t alone in experiencing 
the benefits of pairing technology with 
pet care. Whisker has seen hundreds of 
similar cases from customers who were 
notified by the Litter-Robot app that their 
cat’s litter habits had changed, including 
weight loss or going to the bathroom too 
little or too much — all of which can be 
signs of illness or distress.
So far, Whisker has more than a 
half-million users of its smartphone 
app with more than 800,000 connected 
robots.

“Building digital features that help with 
your pet’s health is really exciting for me 
as somebody with both a cat and a dog at 
home, and somebody who is a true user 
of that product,” Zuppke says.
Now, Whisker, which partners with big 
box retailers such as PetSmart and Best 
Buy, is gearing up for the next phase of its 
evolution.
This fall, Whisker will begin the pro-
cess of adding a new 10,000-square-foot 
engineering lab at its 50,000-square-foot 
Auburn Hills headquarters, with plans to 
hire an additional 50 engineers. It also has 
an additional 222,000-square-foot facility 
in Juneau, Wisconsin.
Zuppke says it’s important to him per-
sonally and the vision of the company 
to remain in Michigan, as well as retain 
domestic production.
“Building in Detroit allows us to attract 
world-class talent in engineering,” he says. 
“It’s a really unique opportunity for Metro 
Detroit.” 

B I R M I N G H A M

Member FDIC

We can’t help you 
remember if you 
fed the dog.

But we can help you 
pay bills automatically.

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Version:
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