Most Active Veterinary Practice Buyers in 2026: Who’s Sending the Offers

Key takeaways

• Mission Pet Health is among the most active buyers in 2026. The combined Southern Veterinary Partners and Mission Veterinary Partners platform — backed by Shore Capital and Silver Lake — operates 840+ hospitals across 41 states and is deploying capital with a clear acquisition strategy.
• NVA, VetCor, Mars, AmeriVet, and PetVet round out the active buyer pool. Each brings a different ownership structure, capital source, and post-acquisition model. Understanding who they are is the first step in evaluating an offer from any of them.
• The 2026 M&A market has meaningfully recovered. Capstone Partners’ April 2026 Pet Sector M&A Update reports 18 announced or completed sector transactions year-to-date, more than double the same period in 2025, with deal momentum expected to build through the year.
• A direct offer from the most active buyer is still a single data point. The price any one buyer puts in front of you reflects what they believe they can pay without competition. A structured competitive process consistently clears meaningfully higher numbers by putting multiple qualified buyers in the room at the same time.
• What buyers look for in 2026 has tightened. Consistent EBITDA, multi-doctor teams, clean financials, and leadership willing to stay post-close are table stakes. Practices that meet those criteria are fielding more outreach, not less, even as buyers have become more selective on price.

Every few weeks I talk to a practice owner who got a call from a buyer’s acquisition team. Sometimes it’s a letter.

Sometimes it’s a warm email from someone who looked them up by specialty and zip code. The question they nearly always lead with is the same: “Is this one of the real buyers?”

It’s a smart question. There are dozens of groups out there presenting themselves as active acquirers, ranging from the largest platforms in the country to small roll-ups that have acquired 15 practices and are already stretching their debt capacity.

Knowing who is genuinely active and well-capitalized in 2026, and who is testing the market on acquisition terms they may not be able to fund, changes how an owner should receive an approach.

I’ve walked enough of these early conversations to have a working map of which buyers are consistently showing up in the deals we see. This piece is that map.

It covers who the most active veterinary practice buyers in 2026 are, what each one actually is, what they’re looking for, and how the landscape fits together for a seller trying to figure out what their practice is really worth in a market with this many buyers in it.

The most active veterinary practice buyers in 2026 include Mission Pet Health, NVA, VetCor, Mars Veterinary Health, AmeriVet Veterinary Partners, and PetVet Care Centers. Each operates at a different scale, with different capital structures and post-acquisition models.

In competitive processes where multiple qualified buyers bid simultaneously, strong multi-doctor general practices are reaching price levels in the low-to-mid teens EBITDA multiple range.

Who are the most active veterinary practice buyers in 2026?

The buyer pool in 2026 is not evenly distributed. A handful of well-capitalized platforms account for the majority of the acquisition activity.

Most are PE-backed groups — meaning they are owned by private equity funds — with the exception of Mars Veterinary Health, which is family-owned by Mars, Incorporated.

The table below reflects the major active buyers, their current PE or strategic sponsor, and their approximate footprint as of 2026:

Buyer	Sponsor / Owner	Approx. Hospitals (US)	Structure
Mission Pet Health	Shore Capital + Silver Lake	840+ across 41 states	PE-backed merger of SVP + MVP
NVA	JAB Holdings	~1,400 (GP + equine)	PE-backed, post-specialty split
Mars Veterinary Health	Mars, Inc. (family-owned)	~3,000 worldwide (VCA, Banfield, BluePearl)	Strategic / family-owned
VetCor	Harvest Partners + Cressey & Company	793+	PE-backed
AmeriVet Veterinary Partners	AEA Investors + ADIA	200+	PE-backed, partnership model
PetVet Care Centers	KKR	450+	PE-backed
Thrive Pet Healthcare	TSG Consumer Partners	400+	PE-backed

This is not an exhaustive list of every buyer — our full veterinary practice consolidators directory tracks 40-plus active platforms. These are the ones showing up most consistently in the processes I run.

Mission Pet Health: the most closely watched acquirer in 2026

When the merger of Southern Veterinary Partners and Mission Veterinary Partners was formally completed in late 2024, it created one of the two or three largest GP-focused platforms in the country. The combined group launched publicly under the Mission Pet Health brand on July 21, 2025, with fresh equity from Silver Lake alongside existing sponsor Shore Capital.

The scale of what that created is worth understanding before any owner evaluates an offer from them. 840-plus hospitals across 41 states, a fresh capital infusion, and the operational infrastructure of two previously separate organizations now pointing in the same direction. That is a different category of buyer than most of what an independent practice owner has encountered.

What Mission Pet Health is looking for in 2026 is also specific. The outreach I see from them targets practices with strong associate teams, geographic positioning that fills a gap in their existing network, documented and consistent financials, and leadership that is willing to stay through a post-close transition.

They are not in a phase of buying everything. They are deploying capital toward practices that are easiest to integrate and fastest to drive margin from.

For a seller trying to evaluate a Mission Pet Health approach, the question is whether your practice looks like that profile. And the answer to whether their number is right is almost never visible from a single direct conversation with their acquisition team.

See our guide to evaluating a Mission Pet Health offer for what to examine before responding.

NVA: general practice focus after the 2023 business split

NVA — National Veterinary Associates — operates approximately 1,400 locations concentrated in general practice and equine, and is owned by JAB Holdings, the Luxembourg-based family-controlled investment group. The company’s story in 2023 is important context for anyone evaluating NVA outreach in 2026.

In 2023, JAB restructured the NVA portfolio into two distinct businesses. The specialty and emergency hospitals — 145 of them — moved into a separately managed entity called Ethos Veterinary Health.

NVA retained the general practice and equine footprint. JAB has stated it intends to eventually take each business public.

For sellers in the general practice category, NVA is the operating entity in that portfolio, and Ethos manages specialty and emergency separately.

NVA does not publish a standard price sheet. What shows up in a direct approach from their team reflects the leverage they perceive without a competitive alternative in front of them. Outcomes in processes where NVA participates alongside other qualified buyers tend to look different from direct-offer conversations.

That pattern holds across the active buyer pool, not just NVA. See our seller’s guide to NVA for more on how the NVA acquisition model works.

VetCor: the consistent acquirer

VetCor is backed by Harvest Partners and Cressey & Company and has built one of the larger general practice portfolios in the country — 793-plus practices across the US and Canada. VetCor’s acquisition approach is known for consistency.

The team generally focuses on community-based general practices and emphasizes local brand preservation, meaning a practice keeps its existing name and identity post-close.

What VetCor brings in 2026 is a well-capitalized, operationally experienced platform with a long track record of closing deals. The structure they typically discuss with sellers includes a combination of cash at close and rollover equity — rollover equity being the portion of ownership a seller keeps in the new combined entity, usually 20 to 40 percent, with a buyout structured at a future date.

Mars Veterinary Health: the strategic exception

Mars Veterinary Health is the only major acquirer in this group that is not PE-backed. It is owned by Mars, Incorporated — the family-controlled consumer goods company — and that ownership structure changes the calculus in a specific way.

Mars does not operate on a private equity fund’s 5 to 7 year exit timeline. It is a long-hold strategic owner.

Mars operates nearly 3,000 hospitals worldwide through VCA, Banfield, and BluePearl. VCA is its general practice hospital brand; Banfield is the in-store pet hospital network inside PetSmart locations; BluePearl is the specialty and emergency hospital brand.

When a seller is talking to Mars, they are usually talking to the VCA or BluePearl acquisition team depending on practice type.

Because Mars is a strategic buyer rather than a financial one, it evaluates acquisitions through a different lens. Its integration approach, post-acquisition operating model, and the way it structures offers differ meaningfully from what PE-backed groups put in front of sellers.

Understanding how to sell your veterinary practice to Mars and VCA requires understanding that distinction.

AmeriVet: the partnership model

AmeriVet Veterinary Partners, backed by AEA Investors and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), has built a 200-plus practice portfolio anchored around a distinctive partnership model. Rather than a full acquisition where the seller takes a check and transitions out, AmeriVet’s approach involves co-ownership — the selling practice retains meaningful equity and the doctor typically stays involved operationally.

The buyout of the retained stake is structured at a negotiated future multiple.

The partnership model that AmeriVet has popularized is increasingly common across the buyer pool in 2026. For sellers who want to capture value today but retain upside in a growing platform, it can be an attractive structure.

For sellers who want a clean break, it is worth understanding that this model requires post-close engagement that a straight acquisition does not. See our guide to earnout and rollover equity structures for how to evaluate those terms.

PetVet Care Centers: KKR’s platform

PetVet Care Centers is owned by KKR, one of the largest global private equity firms, with 450-plus centers across the country. KKR’s backing puts PetVet in a category where capital is not the constraint — the limiting factor in any given acquisition is whether the practice fits the geographic and operational profile PetVet is building.

PetVet’s most notable financing event in 2025 was a $2.3 billion unitranche loan recapitalization led by Blue Owl Capital, with co-participation from Ares Management, Oaktree Capital Management, and Oak Hill Advisors. That recapitalization extended PetVet’s runway and confirmed the depth of institutional capital supporting the platform’s continued acquisition activity.

What the 2026 market data says

The headline from Capstone Partners‘ April 2026 Pet Sector M&A Update: 18 announced or completed transactions in the broader pet sector year-to-date in 2026, versus 8 in the same period in 2025. The Vet and Health segment accounted for 9 of those deals.

Strategic buyer activity climbed to 10 transactions year-to-date in 2026, compared to just 3 in 2025.

That is not a minor uptick. It is the clearest data point yet that transactions delayed during 2024 and early 2025 — when elevated interest rates made debt-financed acquisitions more expensive across the board — are now completing.

Capstone projects deal momentum to continue building throughout 2026.

The other piece of context worth holding: Octus’s private credit research shows BDCs hold approximately $3.1 billion in principal lent to veterinary companies as of the third quarter of 2025. That capital is deployed and sitting across these platforms.

The pressure to put it to work via acquisitions — rather than letting it sit underutilized — is part of what keeps the buyer pool active even when individual platforms are selective on deal criteria.

One data point that rarely makes it into seller conversations: the AVMA’s 2025 Economic State of the Veterinary Profession report found that independently owned practices represent 93.9% of practices in the 2024 Veterinary Practice Owners Survey. When you hold that against the estimate that corporate groups generate more than half of companion animal revenue, the picture is clear — consolidation is concentrated at the revenue end of the market, not at the practice count end.

The practices these buyers want are the ones generating meaningful EBITDA, which is where the competition for deals is most intense.

What buyers are looking for in 2026 — and what that means for your number

The buyer criteria in 2026 have not changed in their fundamentals, but the bar has raised. Here is what shows up consistently across the most active buyers:

Documented EBITDA — EBITDA is what your practice earns in pure operating profit, before taxes and accounting choices. Buyers multiply that number by the multiple to set the price. “Documented” means the number holds up when their accountants review your financials, which it will not if your P&L is mixed with personal expenses, above-market owner compensation, or one-time items that inflate the figure.

Normalized EBITDA — the same profit number after stripping out those personal items and adjustments — is what buyers actually pay on.

Multi-doctor structure. A practice where revenue and client relationships depend heavily on the owner doctor is a different asset than one where 3 or 4 associate vets carry the caseload. Buyers pay for what transfers, and personal goodwill — the client loyalty attached to you specifically rather than the practice — does not transfer cleanly.

The more associate-distributed the production, the stronger the argument for the multiple a seller deserves.

Leadership willing to stay. Every active buyer in 2026 is building long-term platforms, not just acquiring for EBITDA. The transition period where the selling doctor stays — typically 1 to 3 years — is increasingly a negotiation point, not a formality.

Practices where the owner is genuinely ready to invest in a transition, rather than checked out on day one, command better terms.

Clean financials. This one is simpler than it sounds. Practices that have had the same accountant for 15 years and never thought about how the financials would look to a buyer’s scrutiny often have clean businesses underneath and messy presentation on top.

Part of what a well-run sale process does before any buyer ever sees numbers is translate that presentation into what buyers actually read.

If your practice checks these boxes, the question shifts from whether buyers will approach you to which of the most active ones you should be talking to — and whether you should be talking to one at a time or many at once.

Why a single offer from the most active buyer is still the wrong starting point

I get asked a version of this question every few weeks: “Mission Pet Health approached us. Should we just work with them?” Or NVA.

Or VetCor. The name changes; the question is the same.

The answer is always the same too. A direct offer from any single buyer — regardless of who it is — tells you what that buyer is willing to pay in the absence of competition.

It does not tell you what your practice is worth. Those are two different numbers and the gap between them is real money.

What changes when you run a structured competitive process instead of a single-buyer negotiation is not the buyers themselves — the same Mission Pet Health or NVA or VetCor team shows up. What changes is the information environment they are operating in.

When a buyer knows they are one of four or five qualified groups evaluating the same practice on the same timeline, the number they put forward is calibrated differently than when they are the only one in the room.

This is what the Elite Selling System is built to create. We hand-select and vet every buyer who gets to bid on a practice, the way a doorman with a velvet rope lets in only the right people.

Then we run a private competitive bidding window inside that vetted group. The price that comes out of that window — from the same buyers who might have approached you directly — is consistently different from the direct-offer number.

How consistently different? Across the deals we’ve closed over the past four-plus years, the average deal has cleared over 10 times EBITDA, with 2025 outcomes running past 11 times and recent 2026 deals continuing in roughly that range.

The gap between a direct offer and a competitive process outcome is not a rounding error on any practice doing meaningful revenue.

The right starting point is knowing what your practice is actually worth. That is what we build for sellers before any buyer conversation happens.

Get a Free Practice Value Estimate →

We do a thorough pre-sale financial review — normalizing EBITDA, stress-testing the financial presentation against what a buyer’s accountants will run, and surfacing anything that needs to be addressed before any of those active buyers see your numbers. The estimate tells you what range to expect in a well-run competitive process, not just what one buyer’s team mentioned in a phone call.

Our engagement is success-based. No upfront fees, no retainer.

We only get paid when a deal closes, and only out of the value we create above what you would have cleared on your own. If your practice is not the right fit for the work we do, we’ll say so in the first conversation.

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Frequently asked questions

Who are the most active veterinary practice buyers in 2026?

The most active buyers in 2026 include Mission Pet Health (Shore Capital and Silver Lake, 840+ hospitals), NVA (JAB Holdings, approximately 1,400 locations primarily general practice and equine), VetCor (Harvest Partners and Cressey & Company, 793+ practices), Mars Veterinary Health (family-owned by Mars Inc., approximately 3,000 hospitals worldwide via VCA, Banfield, and BluePearl), AmeriVet Veterinary Partners (AEA Investors and ADIA, 200+ practices), and PetVet Care Centers (KKR, 450+ centers). Mission Pet Health is among the most closely watched given its scale, fresh capital, and active deployment strategy in 2026.

What is Mission Pet Health and why is it so active in 2026?

Mission Pet Health is the combined entity formed by the merger of Southern Veterinary Partners and Mission Veterinary Partners, which closed in late 2024 and launched publicly on July 21, 2025. Backed by Shore Capital and Silver Lake, the platform operates 840+ hospitals across 41 states and received a significant capital infusion at the time of the merger.

That fresh equity, combined with the scale of combining two large consolidators, has made Mission Pet Health one of the most active and closely watched acquirers in 2026. The platform is focused on practices with strong teams, geographic synergy, clean financials, and leadership willing to stay post-close.

Is the veterinary M&A market active in 2026?

Yes. Capstone Partners‘ April 2026 Pet Sector M&A Update reports 18 announced or completed transactions in the sector through year-to-date 2026, compared to 8 in the same period in 2025.

The Vet and Health segment alone accounted for 9 deals year-to-date. Strategic buyer activity climbed to 10 transactions in 2026 compared to just 3 in 2025.

Capstone anticipates deal momentum will continue to build throughout 2026, driven by buyer appetite that has rebounded after several years of contracting M&A volume.

How does NVA differ from the old model after its 2023 restructuring?

NVA separated its specialty and emergency hospitals into a distinct business called Ethos Veterinary Health in 2023, following its acquisition of legacy Ethos in 2022. NVA now focuses on its approximately 1,400 locations in general practice and equine.

Ethos manages the specialty and emergency portfolio separately. JAB Holdings owns both businesses and has stated its intention to eventually take each public.

For general practice sellers in 2026, NVA is the relevant acquirer in the JAB portfolio.

How does Mars Veterinary Health differ from PE-backed buyers?

Mars Veterinary Health is family-owned by Mars, Incorporated, not backed by private equity. That means it does not operate on a PE fund’s 5 to 7 year exit timeline.

It owns VCA, Banfield, and BluePearl and operates nearly 3,000 hospitals worldwide. Because Mars is a strategic buyer rather than a financial buyer, its valuation approach, deal structure, and post-acquisition integration model differ from PE-backed groups.

Mars is the only major buyer in this category; every other large consolidator is PE-backed.

What do the most active buyers look for in a veterinary practice in 2026?

The most active buyers in 2026 prioritize practices with consistent, documented EBITDA (earnings before taxes and accounting choices), a stable associate team that reduces dependence on the selling owner, multi-doctor structure where possible, clean financials with no surprises in a quality-of-earnings review, and leadership willing to stay post-close for a transition period. Geographic fit — practices that fill a gap in the buyer’s existing network — is also a key factor, particularly for Mission Pet Health and NVA which are expanding regionally.

What is rollover equity and why do most active buyers include it in their offers?

Rollover equity means keeping a slice of ownership — typically 20 to 40 percent — in the new entity instead of taking all cash at close. The rollover stake is bought out at a negotiated multiple at a future date, often 3 to 5 years after closing.

Most PE-backed buyers include rollover equity in their offers because it aligns the seller’s incentives with the platform’s performance. From a seller’s perspective, rollover equity is a second bite at growth if the platform performs well, but the value realized depends on how the platform fares.

See our guide to earnout and rollover equity structures for what to examine.

Should I accept a direct offer from one of the most active buyers or run a competitive process?

A direct offer from a single buyer reflects only what that buyer perceives as the right price in the absence of competition. A competitive process — where multiple qualified buyers bid on the same practice simultaneously — consistently clears meaningfully higher prices because buyers bid against each other rather than against an owner with no alternative.

The gap between a direct offer and a competitive process outcome can run into millions of dollars on any meaningful practice. In the processes we run, outcomes for well-qualified practices consistently land above what the same buyers offered directly.

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Sources

Industry M&A research and valuation data

1. Capstone Partners. “Pet Sector M&A Update — April 2026.” capstonepartners.com. https://www.capstonepartners.com/insights/article-pet-sector-ma-update/

2. Octus. “Private-Credit Exposure to Veterinary Rollups Shows Growing Dispersion; VSOs Under Increasing Pressure.” October 2025. octus.com. https://octus.com/resources/articles/private-credit-exposure-to-veterinary-rollups-shows-growing-dispersion-vsos-under-increasing-pressure/

3. Today’s Veterinary Business. “The Great Compression, Year 3.” December 2025. todaysveterinarybusiness.com. https://todaysveterinarybusiness.com/capital-year-in-review-1225/

Veterinary practice operations, benchmarks, and profession data

4. American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). “2025 AVMA Report on the Economic State of the Veterinary Profession.” avma.org. https://ebusiness.avma.org/files/productdownloads/002_AVMA_SotPReport25_NoPasswordPRO.pdf

5. American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). “NVA splits into two businesses, may go public in next few years.” avma.org. https://www.avma.org/news/nva-splits-two-businesses-may-go-public-next-few-years

Public company disclosures and PE filings

6. Mission Pet Health. “Southern Veterinary Partners and Mission Veterinary Partners Join Together as Mission Pet Health.” Press release, July 21, 2025. missionpethealth.com. https://missionpethealth.com/2025/07/21/southern-veterinary-partners-and-mission-veterinary-partners-join-together-as-mission-pet-health/

7. GlobeNewswire. “Southern Veterinary Partners and Mission Veterinary Partners Join Together as Mission Pet Health.” July 21, 2025. globenewswire.com. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/07/21/3118686/0/en/Southern-Veterinary-Partners-and-Mission-Veterinary-Partners-Join-Together-as-Mission-Pet-Health.html

8. Shore Capital Partners. “Mission Pet Health.” shorecp.com. https://www.shorecp.com/companies/mission-pet-health

9. Silver Lake. “Mission Pet Health.” silverlake.com. https://www.silverlake.com/portfolio/mission-pet-health/

10. JAB Holding Company. “NVA, the Leading Global Pet Healthcare Organization, to Form Two Distinct Veterinary Businesses.” BusinessWire, March 2023. jabholco.com. https://www.jabholco.com/documents/6/NVA_PressRelease_vFinal.pdf

11. AEA Investors. “AEA Acquires AmeriVet Partners Management, Inc.” aeainvestors.com. https://www.aeainvestors.com/aea-acquires-amerivet-partners-management-inc/

12. Harvest Partners. “VetCor.” harvestpartners.com. https://harvestpartners.com/portfolio/vetcor/