Tuft, the booking and business management platform for pet groomers, has been named in TechRound's SaaS66 2026, the annual list of standout software companies published on 1 October.

The list is judged by a panel of technology, sales and marketing specialists on innovation, scale and real-world impact. TechRound described this year's entry round as its largest to date.

Founded in 2021, Tuft now works with thousands of pet groomers across the UK, Ireland and Spain, and the platform has seen its booking volumes grow sharply, with a significant share of all appointments it has ever handled taken within the past year.

Tuft combines booking software for pet groomers with a marketplace app used by pet owners. Groomers get a calendar, card payments, deposits, automated reminders, pet profiles and consent forms. Pet owners can find and book a local groomer directly.

Deposits have proved the strongest draw for salons. Groomers using deposit rules report a marked drop in no-shows. Tuft's data also shows that a substantial proportion of bookings are made while salons are closed, appointments that would previously have depended on someone being free to answer the phone.

Chloe Smith (pictured), founder of Tuft, said: "The idea came from watching my dad fail to book a groomer back in 2019. I told him he was being old, of course there was an app for this. Then I looked, and there wasn't. Grooming is a proper industry with thousands of skilled small businesses in it, and most of them were still running on a paper diary and a mobile phone. Being recognised on a list where nearly everything else is AI feels like a win for an unglamorous problem solved properly."

Kelly Davis of KD Grooming Studio, one of the platform's longest-standing users, has cut her weekly admin substantially since joining and has opened a second salon, also running on Tuft.

Tuft offers a free Essential plan with no booking caps or time limit, alongside paid plans for larger salons.