PetSmart paid $3.35 billion for an online pet store in 2017, then the biggest e-commerce deal on record. Two years later it took that store public. Chewy had started in Florida as Mr. Chewy, selling heavy bags of food and litter that nobody wanted to carry home. Its customers signed up for Autoship and never had to think about running out. Its phone reps were famous for handwritten cards. When Chewy filed in 2019, it was one of the few online retailers Amazon had not crushed.

Mr. Chewy in South Florida

Ryan Cohen and Michael Day founded the company in June 2011. They bet that pet owners were loyal and that pet food was a repeat purchase made for a subscription. Chewy shipped fast, took calls around the clock, and treated each pet as family. Sumit Singh replaced Cohen as CEO in March 2018. By then Chewy belonged to PetSmart, which private equity firm BC Partners controlled.

Fifty-Nine Percent on Day One

Chewy priced its IPO at $22 a share in June 2019 and raised about $1 billion. It listed on the NYSE as CHWY and jumped about 59 percent on its first day. The pandemic sent new pet owners flooding to the site in 2020. Cohen moved on and later became chairman and then CEO of GameStop. BC Partners kept a large stake in Chewy and sold shares over time. Chewy still trades on the NYSE as CHWY.

Cover: White Dog, Wenceslaus Hollar. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a white dog (the pet at home).