Selling Your Veterinary Practice to Destination Pet: A 2026 Guide

Key takeaways

• Destination Pet is a private equity-backed pet health and wellness platform founded in 2017 by Shane Kelly and headquartered in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, per the company’s own materials.
• LetterOne owns it through its L1 Health arm, having agreed to acquire Destination Pet in October 2019 with a commitment of up to $450 million to build an animal health and wellness platform across the US and Europe, per the L1 Health press release.
• The defining feature is “Connected Care” — an integrated model that pairs veterinary medicine with boarding, daycare, grooming, and training across two facility types: Veterinary Care Centers and Pet Lifestyle Centers. That blend is the whole reason a Destination Pet conversation looks different from a vet-only consolidator conversation.
• Destination Pet markets an all-cash structure to sellers — its seller page states it offers an all-cash transaction and either the lease or purchase of your real estate, rather than a rollover or partnership model.
• The only reliable way to know what Destination Pet — or any major buyer — would actually pay for your specific practice is to run a structured competitive process. We call ours the Elite Selling System: we hand-select and vet every buyer who gets to bid, the way a doorman with a velvet rope lets in only the right people, then run a private bidding window inside that vetted group. When a buyer bids against a curated group of qualified competitors, the number is reliably different from what they would offer in a direct, single-bidder conversation.

When a vet asks me about selling your veterinary practice to Destination Pet, the conversation almost never stays inside the four walls of the exam room. It widens fast.

Because Destination Pet isn’t just buying medicine. It’s buying the boarding suite, the grooming room, the daycare yard, and the medicine, and it’s trying to stitch all of it into one experience.

So the first thing I do over dinner is reframe the question. The owner thinks they’re asking “what will a consolidator pay for my practice.” What they’re actually asking is “how does a pet-lifestyle platform value a practice that may or may not already look like the thing they’re building.”

That distinction is the through-line of every Destination Pet conversation. Most PE-backed groups are pure medical roll-ups.

Destination Pet is something else, and the difference shows up everywhere: in the kind of practice they get most excited about, in how they talk about your real estate, and in what your day looks like after closing.

Here’s the short version, the one I’d give before the food arrives. Destination Pet is a private equity-backed pet health and wellness platform, owned by LetterOne since 2019, that runs an integrated “Connected Care” model combining veterinary medicine with boarding, daycare, grooming, and training. For sellers, its own materials describe an all-cash buyout with either a lease or purchase of your real estate, plus a promise of clinical and brand autonomy. Whether that’s the right home for your life’s work is a question best answered by putting Destination Pet in a room with other qualified buyers and watching how the terms move.

What follows is the same picture I’d lay out if you handed me a Destination Pet offer and asked what to do with it. Who they are, who owns them, what Connected Care means for the kind of seller they want, how the all-cash structure works, where the negotiation leverage actually sits, and how to think about them against the rest of the buyer pool.

Quick facts on Destination Pet

Destination Pet was founded in 2017 (some sources cite 2016) by Shane Kelly, who led the company as CEO through its build-out years and is widely credited as its founder. The company is headquartered in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, per its own About page, and also lists a corporate address in Irving, Texas. (Note: company leadership evolves over time — confirm the current executive team directly before any seller conversation.)

The platform’s distinctive model is integrated Connected Care: combining veterinary medicine with adjacent pet-lifestyle services. Per the company’s locations page, Destination Pet delivers this through two facility types: Veterinary Care Centers and Pet Lifestyle Centers.

That two-format structure is the operating heart of the platform.

On footprint, Destination Pet’s own locations page states it operates hundreds of locations nationwide across roughly 31 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, among others. That “hundreds of locations” figure spans both vet hospitals and pet-care or boarding facilities, not vet hospitals alone, and the exact vet-hospital count isn’t disclosed.

For a separate reference point, a December 2022 industry roll-call reported Destination Pet operating roughly 120-plus combined veterinary hospitals and pet-care facilities in North America.

The platform grew through a blend of veterinary and pet-care acquisitions. In March 2020, Destination Pet completed its acquisition of VitalPet, adding 24 veterinary hospitals across 7 states in a transaction valued at approximately $47 million, per the company’s deal counsel.

It has also folded in pet-care brands including Pet Palace Resort (11 boarding and daycare locations across OH, IN, NC, and PA), Exceptional Pets, and Roscoe’s Bed + Bark (early 2024). It’s a roll-up pattern that mixes medicine and lifestyle by design.

A note on size figures you may see online: third-party data aggregators report Destination Pet’s annual revenue at roughly $176 million with a headcount in the 1,000-to-5,000 range. Treat those as estimates.

They are aggregator figures, not company-confirmed.

What Destination Pet looks for in a practice

Destination Pet markets to two audiences at once, and that tells you a lot about what they want. The company’s own site says it plainly: “Whether you’re a veterinarian who wants to focus less on paperwork and more on pets or a pet resort owner ready to pass the torch, Destination Pet has the solution.” Read that twice.

They’re recruiting vets and boarding owners under the same banner.

That dual pitch is the single most useful signal for a seller trying to figure out whether they’re a strong fit. The practices that map cleanly onto the Connected Care model tend to be ones that already run, or sit physically near, the lifestyle side: boarding, daycare, grooming.

If your practice has a kennel out back, a grooming room, or land to expand into one, you fit the thesis they’re building toward.

That doesn’t mean a pure medical practice is off the table. Destination Pet acquired 24 straight veterinary hospitals when it bought VitalPet, so the platform clearly buys medicine-only practices too.

But it’s worth understanding the lens. When a buyer’s whole identity is built on bundling services, a practice that can plug into that bundle, or anchor a new Pet Lifestyle Center next door, carries a strategic value that a comparable medicine-only practice across town may not.

This is one of the places where a competitive process earns its keep. The value of your boarding, grooming, or expandable real estate to Destination Pet may be very different from its value to a pure medical roll-up.

You only see that difference when both kinds of buyer underwrite your practice at the same time. Our PE pricing guide walks through how different buyer types weigh different assets.

Who owns Destination Pet, and why it matters

Destination Pet is owned by LetterOne, through its L1 Health investment arm. L1 Health agreed to acquire Destination Pet on October 28, 2019, committing up to $450 million to build a leading animal health and wellness platform across the US and Europe, per the L1 Health press release.

LetterOne is an international investment firm founded in 2013 and headquartered in Luxembourg, investing across energy, technology, health, and retail, per the same release. So Destination Pet sits inside a large, multi-sector institutional investor with a defined mandate to build out pet health and wellness specifically.

LetterOne’s own L1 Health page still lists Destination Pet among its portfolio companies as of the firm’s December 2024 reporting, and no primary source shows a change of control since 2019 — so LetterOne remains the verified sponsor.

For a seller, ownership horizon shapes the deal more than most owners expect. An institutional sponsor with a stated build-out mandate is funding acquisitions in pursuit of a larger platform it intends to scale.

That generally means real capital behind the offers and a genuine appetite for practices that fit the model. It’s also why the all-cash structure they advertise is credible: a platform this well-capitalized can write the check rather than lean on rollover equity to bridge a price.

One thing to keep in mind. Destination Pet is PE-backed, which puts it in a different category from Mars Veterinary Health (VCA, Banfield, BluePearl).

Mars is the strategic family-owned exception in the US veterinary buyer pool. That difference matters mainly for how the two think about brand and time horizon, which I’ll come back to in the comparison section.

How the all-cash structure actually works

Here’s where Destination Pet diverges most sharply from the rest of the buyer pool. Per its Sell Your Veterinary Practice page, the company states it offers “an all-cash transaction and either the lease or purchase of your real estate.”

Let me define the terms, because they matter. An all-cash buyout means the buyer pays the full agreed price in cash at closing, rather than splitting it among cash, an earnout (part of the price paid later only if the practice hits agreed targets after closing), and rollover equity (keeping a slice of ownership in the new entity instead of taking all cash).

Destination Pet’s materials describe all-cash. They don’t advertise a mandatory equity rollover the way some partnership-model buyers do.

That’s a real distinction worth weighing carefully. A clean all-cash exit removes the uncertainty that comes with an earnout or with betting on a future platform exit you don’t control.

For an owner who wants to be fully out, or close to it, that simplicity has genuine value.

It also changes what you negotiate. When there’s no rollover and no large earnout, the contingent-pay levers that dominate other deals matter less, and the real-estate decision moves to center stage.

Lease or sell: that single choice can swing your total economics by a meaningful amount, and the right answer depends on your tax position, your retirement plan, and what the building is worth as a standalone asset. Get advice on that before you pick.

One terminology note for any deal in this market. Even in an all-cash structure, a purchase agreement may include an indemnification holdback, a portion of the price the buyer holds back and pays later, over a defined period, to secure your reps and warranties.

That’s money the buyer retains, not funds placed with a third party. At closing the buyer wires the agreed funds directly to you and any lienholders, and the documents become effective once the wire confirms.

What life looks like after a Destination Pet sale

Destination Pet’s seller pitch leans heavily on autonomy and offloading the back office. Per its seller page, the company promises sellers “clinical and brand autonomy so they can maintain their vision and provide the best care,” and says it lets veterinarians keep practicing after the sale without managing the business side.

On the operational side, Destination Pet says it provides back-office support across marketing, finance and accounting, payroll, IT, HR, and legal, plus “medical leadership” it describes as clinically experienced DVMs. The promise is the standard consolidator value proposition: you keep treating patients, they absorb the administrative load.

For the staff you’d be leaving in good hands, Destination Pet advertises full benefits under its “One Pack” culture: medical, dental, vision, 401k, PTO, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, bonus plans, and employee discounts, per its seller page. For an owner whose team has been with them for years, the benefits picture for retained staff is a fair question to ask early.

A practical reality check on autonomy. Every consolidator promises clinical autonomy in marketing materials, and most genuinely intend to deliver it.

The difference between intention and reality lives in the definitive purchase agreement, not the website. “General approach” language is not a contractual commitment. If clinical and brand autonomy matter to you (and with Destination Pet’s Connected Care bundling, brand handling is worth pinning down), get the specific terms in writing.

How Destination Pet compares to the other major buyers

If you’re weighing Destination Pet, you’re probably comparing them implicitly to the other buyers who might compete for your practice. Here’s how Destination Pet stacks up across the dimensions that matter.

The table below is a starting frame, not a scoreboard.

Dimension	Destination Pet	Typical PE-backed vet roll-up	Mars Veterinary Health
Ownership	PE-backed (LetterOne / L1 Health, since 2019)	PE fund ownership	Family-owned (Mars Inc.)
Core model	Connected Care: vet + boarding/daycare/grooming/training	Veterinary medicine focus	Veterinary medicine focus
Deal structure marketed	All-cash; lease or buy your real estate	Mix of cash, earnout, rollover/partnership	Varies by deal
Best-fit practice	Practices with, or near, pet-care services	Strong multi-doctor GP practices	Practices fitting Mars network criteria
Brand handling	Company markets brand autonomy (confirm in writing)	Commonly preserves local brand	Historically transitions to a Mars-network brand over time

Versus the typical PE-backed roll-up. Most PE-backed groups are pure medical platforms. Destination Pet’s edge, and its quirk, is the lifestyle bundle.

If your practice already touches boarding or grooming, Destination Pet may see strategic value a medicine-only buyer doesn’t. If you run a pure medical practice, a focused medical roll-up may underwrite you just as aggressively.

Our veterinary practice consolidators overview maps the broader buyer landscape.

Versus Mars Veterinary Health (VCA, Banfield, BluePearl). Mars is the strategic family-owned exception in the US buyer pool, per Mars company disclosures, which sets it apart from Destination Pet’s PE-backed structure. Mars has historically transitioned acquired practices toward a network brand over time, while Destination Pet markets brand autonomy to sellers.

Both can compete for qualifying practices in a structured sale process.

Versus partnership-model buyers. Some buyers center their pitch on a partnership or joint-venture structure, where you keep a minority equity stake and ride a future exit. Destination Pet’s marketed model is the opposite: all-cash, clean exit, no required rollover.

The choice often comes down to whether you want to stay financially invested in the upside or take a guaranteed check and walk. There’s no universally right answer; there’s a right answer for your situation.

The honest way to settle which buyer pays most, and on the best terms, is to put a curated group of them in a competitive process and let them surface their best offers in parallel. The buyer who wins on a direct, one-on-one conversation is rarely the buyer who wins when the room knows you have alternatives.

What to negotiate before signing with Destination Pet

A handful of priorities when you’re working through a Destination Pet deal, ordered by leverage.

The real-estate decision (highest priority). Destination Pet offers either a lease or a purchase of your real estate. This is the single biggest economic fork in an all-cash deal.

Model both paths against your tax position and retirement plan before you choose. A sale-leaseback and an outright building sale produce very different lifetime outcomes.

Clinical and brand autonomy, in writing. The seller page promises both. Get them defined in the purchase agreement: who makes medicine decisions, who controls the practice name and signage, and (given Connected Care) how the pet-care side interacts with your clinical operations and brand.

Post-sale role and compensation. Confirm how long you’re expected to stay, your title, and how you’re paid: base, bonus, and the formula behind any production component. Pin the structure down rather than relying on a verbal promise.

Non-compete scope. Non-competes commonly run several years over a defined radius. Negotiate the duration and the geographic radius, and carve out any modality you might want to keep practicing.

Staff continuity and benefits. Destination Pet markets full benefits under its One Pack culture. If your team’s well-being is a deciding factor, get the specifics on benefits, retention, and titles for key staff.

Integration with the pet-care model. Because Connected Care bundles services, ask exactly how, and whether, your practice gets paired with boarding, daycare, or grooming post-close, and what that means for your space, staff, and patient flow.

Should I take a Destination Pet offer or run a competitive process?

For Destination Pet specifically, the value of a competitive process shows up in two places: the price and the real-estate terms. An all-cash buyer with a strong sponsor has every incentive to put forward a clean number.

But “clean” and “best” aren’t the same thing. No buyer reaches for their strongest price, or their most seller-friendly real-estate option, when they’re the only one at the table.

The mechanical reason is the same as for any major buyer. Without competition, a buyer has no structural reason to lead with their best terms.

With competition, every dimension becomes negotiable, because every bidder knows you have alternatives. Destination Pet’s lifestyle thesis adds a wrinkle worth exploiting: a practice with boarding or expandable real estate may be worth more to Destination Pet than to a medicine-only buyer, and the only way to surface that premium is to have both kinds of buyer bidding at once.

Have an offer from Destination Pet? Get a Free Practice Value Estimate. Send us the offer and we’ll decompose the terms, weigh the lease-versus-sell real-estate question, and project what your practice would likely clear in a structured competitive process with the broader qualified buyer pool. No upfront cost, no obligation.

What our Elite Selling System actually does

When a Destination Pet offer is on the table, our process is built to do one thing: make sure you see the whole field before you commit to anyone.

Phase one: the practice and real-estate read. Before any bidder packet goes out, we look hard at what makes your practice valuable to different buyer types: the medicine, yes, but also the boarding, grooming, daycare, and the building itself. For an all-cash buyer like Destination Pet, the lease-versus-sell question gets modeled early, because it drives your total economics.

Phase two: the bidder mix. From the named veterinary consolidators we actively track, we invite only the ones that genuinely compete for your specific practice. For a Destination Pet-eligible practice, that often means pairing the lifestyle-bundle buyers against the strong medical roll-ups against the family-owned strategic — so each one is competing on the dimension it cares about most.

The right mix is usually a handful of carefully chosen bidders, not a mass auction.

Phase three: the term-by-term comparison. Bidders return full term sheets, not just headline numbers. You see side-by-side comparisons across price, real-estate terms, post-sale role, autonomy commitments, non-compete scope, and integration plans.

Then you choose on the dimensions that matter to you: sometimes the all-cash simplicity, sometimes a different structure, sometimes the highest number.

Practices in the qualifying revenue band that run our process consistently clear materially better total economic outcomes, often multiple seven figures better, than the same practice would have cleared by signing the original direct offer without testing the field.

Closing thought

The honest read on Destination Pet: it’s a well-capitalized, PE-backed platform with a genuinely distinctive model. The Connected Care bundle means it can see value in a practice, especially one with boarding, grooming, or expandable real estate, that a pure medical buyer might walk past.

The all-cash structure it markets offers a clean exit that a lot of owners want.

What separates a well-negotiated Destination Pet outcome from a mediocre one isn’t whether the deal is all-cash. It’s the real-estate decision, the autonomy language in the actual contract, and whether you tested the price against other qualified buyers before signing.

Those choices decide whether this becomes the right home for your life’s work or just the first offer you happened to accept.

If you’ve received a Destination Pet offer, or their team has reached out to start the conversation, the highest-leverage move is to understand how the rest of the field would value your practice, and your real estate, before committing to anything. Get a Free Practice Value Estimate and we’ll lay out the same comparison we would for a client across a dinner table. If you want to go deeper first, our guides on selling your veterinary practice, valuing a veterinary practice, and who to sell your veterinary practice to cover the groundwork.

Sources

Destination Pet and parent company materials

1. Destination Pet. Company overview and seller audiences. destinationpet.com
2. Destination Pet. Our Locations — Veterinary Care Centers and Pet Lifestyle Centers. destinationpet.com/our-locations
3. Destination Pet. Sell Your Veterinary Practice — all-cash structure, autonomy, back-office support, One Pack benefits. destinationpet.com
4. L1 Health. L1 Health to Acquire Destination Pet and Launch New Animal Health and Wellness Platform in US and Europe. October 2019. prnewswire.com

4a. LetterOne. L1 Health — portfolio companies (lists Destination Pet; December 2024 reporting). letterone.com/our-businesses/l1-health

5. Destination Pet / L1 Health. Destination Pet, Backed by LetterOne, Completes Acquisition of VitalPet. March 2020. prnewswire.com
6. BioSpace. Destination Pet, Backed by LetterOne, Completes Acquisition of VitalPet. biospace.com

Industry M&A research and sector data

7. Vet Integrations. Veterinary Consolidators Roll-Call. December 2022. vetintegrations.com
8. Porter Hedges LLP. Porter Hedges Advises Destination Pet in Its $47 Million Acquisition of VitalPet. porterhedges.com

Company size estimates (third-party aggregators — approximate, not company-confirmed)

9. ZoomInfo. Destination Pet company profile — estimated revenue and headcount. zoominfo.com