SmartyKat belongs to Worldwise, which began by selling garden products.

SmartyKat is the cat toy and accessory brand of Worldwise, Inc., a pet supplies company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its range runs from catnip toys and teaser wands to corrugated cardboard scratchers, and the brand’s website sorts it into play, scratch, and stimulation and care. Worldwise sells SmartyKat alongside a set of sister brands: Petlinks, TrustyPup, goDog, Sherpa and FurHaven among them.

The parent company did not start in pets. In a profile published by Supermarket News on 1 January 2018, writer Seth Mendelson reported that Worldwise was formed in 1990 to market environmentally friendly gardening products, and that it moved into pet products several years later, with a commitment to keeping post-production waste low and using as many recycled materials as possible. The profile described Worldwise as based in San Rafael, California; by January 2022 the company’s owner gave its headquarters as Novato, California.

By the early 2010s SmartyKat was one of the company’s principal names. When Private Equity Wire reported on 3 May 2011 that the private equity firm Mistral Equity Partners had acquired Worldwise, it said the company’s beds, toys, scratchers, treats and litter accessories for dogs and cats were sold under the SmartyKat, PoochPlanet and Petlinks brands, through mass-market, grocery and pet specialty retailers. It described products developed primarily from natural, certified organic, reclaimed or recycled materials. Mistral’s managing partner Andrew Heyer credited the company with combining “fashion-oriented product design” with “an environmentally responsible branding strategy,” and the then chief executive, Matt Turnbull, spoke of offering pet owners “smart, stylish, environmentally responsible products.”

A packaging system that colour-codes what each toy is for.

The idea that most clearly shapes SmartyKat’s packaging is the Complete Needs System. The brand’s website says the system organises its range so that owners can match products to a cat’s emotional, instinctual and physical needs, and that it is colour-coded and “prominently displayed on our packaging.”

Worldwise’s chief executive explained the thinking in the 2018 Supermarket News profile. Kevin Fick, chief executive and president since 2012, said the company had launched a five-year plan to update and revitalise its brands, and that for mass-market shoppers this meant updated, streamlined packaging. “We have updated the look and the feel of the line to be warmer and more inviting to the consumer,” he said. “We made the brand more dominant on the packaging, and simplified the message on the product for consumers.” The Complete Needs System, he added, stood out clearly on the packs, alongside the company’s satisfaction guarantee.

Fick also described SmartyKat as one half of a pair. Worldwise had introduced TrustyPup as a matching dog brand, and he said the two were designed to sit next to each other on the shelf, so that a store could offer one program for cats and dogs. “Between the prominent branding and the Complete Needs System,” he said, “it’s a powerful combination.” The same profile said Worldwise used recycled plastic bottles and corrugated cardboard in its products, including a fibre fill called EcoRest, made from post-consumer recycled bottles, in beds and soft toys.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make furniture, scratchers, toys or other accessories for cats. Cat accessory brands in general sit at many different points in the pet trade, from small workshops run by their founders to names that now belong to much larger pet companies or investment groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a specialty pet shop to an online marketplace.

A cat accessory brand’s identity is usually carried less by one product than by a name, a mark, its packaging and the way its range is organised and described, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown well beyond its first workshop or catalogue. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its products are actually designed and made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its range and packaging have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Two private equity owners, a growing group of brands, and new treats.

Ownership of the brand follows ownership of Worldwise. After Mistral’s purchase in 2011 came a second private equity owner. Private Equity Wire reported on 28 September 2021 that A&M Capital Partners, a middle-market fund on the A&M Capital platform, together with an affiliated fund, had acquired Worldwise. Its report listed SmartyKat first among the company’s brands, ahead of TrustyPup, Petlinks, goDog, Sherpa, Guaranteed On-Board, PoochPlanet and Pawscout, and said Kevin Fick would continue to lead the company. A&M Capital partner Ryan McCarthy pointed to the team’s product development, its use of consumer data and its progress in sustainable manufacturing. A&M Capital Partners has owned Worldwise, and with it SmartyKat, since September 2021.

The group then grew by acquisition. In a release dated 25 January 2022, A&M Capital announced that Worldwise had bought Kitty Sift, a cat litter and accessories business from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and that Kitty Sift’s founder, Carrie Van Wert, would join Worldwise to lead new product development for cat litter and accessories. The same release listed FurHaven among Worldwise’s brands and said Kitty Sift was its second acquisition in a month. On the SmartyKat website today, FurHaven beds, goDog toys, Sherpa travel goods and Treatly dog treats appear as sister brands in the same menu.

The range itself keeps moving. In October 2026 the SmartyKat home page was leading with SmartyKat Treats, introduced with the line “Just 2 Ingredients. Real Protein + Catnip.” Its toy names lean on wordplay and alliteration, with the brand’s own “K” spelling carried into products such as the Kolossal Karrot catnip kicker, alongside the Loco Motion and Feather Whirl electronic wands.

For a design guide, SmartyKat shows how a mass-market brand can use a colour-coded system on the pack to tell shoppers what each product is for, and how a playful name can carry its own spelling into the product range. Compare Petstages, which also sorted its toys by purpose, and Catit, the Hagen Group’s cat brand. For this guide we use tangerine, leaf green and navy with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep SmartyKat’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.