Alumni profile: Marc Atiyeh, A.B. '14

When it comes to veterinary medicine, the demand far outweighs the supply. Nearly 87 million households own a pet in the United States, but the number of registered veterinarians is just over 127,000.

“There just aren’t enough vets to care for all the pets in the U.S.,” said Marc Atiyeh, A.B. '14. “There are two ways to address that: you go build more veterinary medicine schools, or you look for technological solutions.”

Atiyeh, a former electrical engineering and computer science concentrator at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), is solving the latter. In 2019, he founded Pawp, the first ever digital clinic for pets with fellow SEAS alum Andrew Malek, A.B. '16, and Cody Simons, A.B '14. In the past five years, Pawp has gone through multiple successful funding series, raising over $27 million. In 2022, Atiyeh and Malek were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 – Consumer Technology list. This past May, the company announced a transformative partnership with Walmart

“Our mission is to make pet care accessible and affordable for everybody,” Atiyeh said. “Digital healthcare isn’t going to replace physical healthcare, but the best outcomes happen when digital and physical work hand in hand. The reality is that people usually only go to the vet once a year, and they only go because something really bad is happening. Our deep belief is that the more touch points you have with a care provider, whether it’s a veterinarian or veterinary technician, the better the outcome for your pet, and the cheaper it is in the long run for your pocket.”

When Atiyeh, Malek, and Simons began working on Pawp in 2019, it started as an e-commerce company.

“I loved pets. I could name 50 breeds, if not more,” Atiyeh said. “I understood tech, but I didn’t know very much about the industry.”

But when the pandemic hit in 2020, Atiyeh and the team realized that veterinary care was about to change.

“When the pandemic started, we decided to pivot to digital pet care. We realized people would need that because in-person visits were suddenly much harder. We were able to spin off our first attempt at around-the-clock pet care from anywhere, and very quickly that began to take off,” said Atieyh. “As a team, we made that shift with a lot of trial and error, adapting to changing situations, and with grit and relentlessness to build quickly and ship something that might not have been perfect at the time. I absolutely learned how to do those things at SEAS.”

 Born and raised in Lebanon, Atiyeh's family instilled in him and his older brother Karim, A.B. '11, the importance of higher education.  

“It’s very hard making the decision to send your children thousands of miles away,” Atiyeh said. “It means studying for the SATs and Test of English as a Foreign Language. In my family, every dime we had went to helping us build our case to go to the U.S.”

 Karim was the first to apply and get accepted to come to Harvard, where he also studied computer science and electrical engineering at SEAS. Three years later, he convinced his younger brother to join him.

“He loved the fact that it was more well-rounded, that you could meet people from all different walks of life and cultures,” Atiyeh said. “In his junior year, he called me and said, ‘If you don’t come to Harvard, forget me as a brother for the next four years.’ I cried a lot, leaving my friends and home, but it was the culmination of 10-15 years of preparation and sacrifices by my parents.”

 That experience inspired Atiyeh’s to start his first company. While still at SEAS, he founded Help Me Get In, a college admissions advisory company for students from developing countries. Atiyeh founded Help Me Get In to share his brother’s advice.

 “Everything I learned from my brother about the college application process, I wanted to share with other people,” he said. “I’m very thankful for the Harvard education and community. Harvard opened up so many doors. I’m a living example of how Harvard can change lives.”