Selling Your Veterinary Practice to Hometown Veterinary Partners: A 2026 Guide

Key takeaways

• Hometown Veterinary Partners is a private equity-backed group founded in 2023 and headquartered in the Minneapolis area, launched as the first portfolio company of Boston-based Briarcliff Capital Partners.
• Hometown positions itself as “not a corporation,” describing its entity as a partnership founded by people who came out of corporate veterinary practices, with preserved local identity and clinical autonomy at the center of the pitch.
• It is a smaller, regionally clustered group of roughly 11 to 12 hospitals across Minnesota, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina, and Florida. That shapes the kind of practice it tends to pursue and the deal profile a seller should expect.
• Hometown grants equity to partner doctors and hospital directors with no financial buy-in, per its own materials, and grows mostly by acquiring independent practices and rebranding them under the Hometown name.
• The most reliable way to know what Hometown (or any buyer) would actually pay for your 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. Hometown bids differently against a curated field than it does in a one-on-one conversation.

When a vet asks me about Hometown Veterinary Partners, the question underneath the question is almost always the same. Will the place I built still feel like mine after I sign?

That’s the right instinct, because Hometown’s whole story is built around that exact worry. The group says plainly on its own site that it is “not a corporation.” Its entity, it says, is set up as a partnership, founded by people who came out of corporate veterinary practices and wanted something that felt more local.

So selling your veterinary practice to Hometown Veterinary Partners is, in their framing, less about joining a chain and more about handing the keys to a partner who promises to keep your name on the door.

I like a lot about that positioning. I also know that positioning and contract language are two different things, and the gap between them is where a sell-side advisor earns their keep.

What follows is the picture I’d lay out over dinner if you slid a Hometown offer across the table and asked me what to make of it. Who they are, who backs them, what the partnership model actually means for a seller, where the real negotiation lives, and how to weigh Hometown against the rest of the field before you commit to anyone.

Who owns Hometown Veterinary Partners?

Hometown Veterinary Partners is private equity-backed. It was launched as the first — the inaugural — portfolio company of Briarcliff Capital Partners, a Boston-based middle-market private equity firm, in an announcement dated March 2023.

Day-to-day, the group is led by founder Keri Kamba, who serves as President and CEO, and it is structured as a partnership rather than a conventional roll-up.

So the ownership has two layers worth separating in your head.

The capital layer is Briarcliff Capital Partners. Per its own firm materials, Briarcliff focuses on healthcare, business, and consumer services, and targets companies with roughly $1 million to $10 million of EBITDA (that’s what a practice earns in pure operating profit, before taxes and accounting choices).

It describes itself as an operationally hands-on investor that gets involved “beyond the board level.” Hometown was its first vet platform.

The operating layer is the Hometown leadership team. Kamba founded the group and is its President and CEO, and at launch was described as President and COO.

The team also lists a Chief Veterinary Officer (Cheryl Brocki), a Director of Mergers and Acquisitions (Noah Radlich), and a Director of Integrations and Operations (Tia Gregorio).

One honest note on currency. The public ownership link rests on Briarcliff’s dated March 2023 press release naming Hometown as its first portfolio company.

Whether Briarcliff remains the sponsor today, versus a later recapitalization or new investor, isn’t something I can confirm from public sources as of 2026. If you’re evaluating an offer, that’s a fair and easy question to ask the Hometown team directly, and one our veterinary practice consolidators tracking helps us keep current.

How big is Hometown Veterinary Partners?

Hometown Veterinary Partners is a smaller, regionally clustered group — it operates roughly 11 to 12 veterinary hospitals and describes itself as still growing. Its footprint spans Minnesota, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina, and Florida: a multi-state but regionally concentrated Midwest and Southeast presence, not a nationwide network.

Why does size matter to you as a seller? Because it shapes the deal profile.

A group this size is in active build mode. Hometown’s home page references “approximately 11 hospitals and growing,” while a separate page references 12 locations — so call it about 11 to 12 and expanding.

That growth posture usually means a buyer is hungry for the right practices and willing to engage substantively when a good one comes to the table.

It also shapes geography. Hometown tends to pursue practices in or near markets where it already has a presence, which makes the existing Midwest and Southeast cluster the most natural fit.

None of that is a ceiling — but it’s useful context when you’re sizing up whether you’re a core target or a stretch.

The Hometown model: “not a corporation” and local identity

Hometown’s defining pitch is local-identity preservation. Per its own About Us page, the group states: “We are not a corporation.

Our entity is set up as a partnership, founded by individuals who have transitioned from corporate veterinary practices.”

That sentence is doing a lot of work, and it’s worth slowing down on it.

The broader brand positioning runs the same direction — Hometown describes itself as “empowering the future of veterinary medicine” with a “hometown approach to modern veterinary care,” leaning hard on community connection and local character. The implication for a seller is that your practice name, your team, and your local feel are meant to survive the transaction rather than get absorbed into someone else’s brand.

Here’s how I’d frame it. This positioning is genuine to Hometown’s strategy — the partnership language and the local-identity emphasis are clearly central to how they recruit sellers.

PE-backed groups in general tend to preserve local practice branding more than a strategic family-owned buyer like Mars does, and Hometown leans into that even harder than most.

But “positioning” lives in marketing copy. “Commitment” lives in the definitive purchase agreement. Those are different documents, and the second one is the only one that binds. The whole point of preparing well before you sell is to get the things you care about — your name on the door, your clinical approach — written into the contract, not just promised on a website.

What Hometown offers sellers: equity without buy-in

Per its own materials, Hometown grants equity to partner doctors and hospital directors without any financial obligation on their part, and positions its hospitals as led by partner doctors who hold a stake and the authority to make decisions. For a continuing owner, that combination — equity with no buy-in, plus retained decision authority — is the heart of the Hometown offer.

Let me unpack the pieces.

Equity without a buy-in. Hometown’s Path to Partnership page states it directly: “We grant equity to Partner Doctors and Hospital Directors, without any financial obligation on their part.” In plain terms, that’s a form of rollover equity — keeping a slice of ownership in the buyer’s entity instead of taking all cash at close — except you’re not writing a check to get it. That’s a real differentiator versus models that ask doctors to invest to participate.

Authority and autonomy. Per its Core Competencies materials, Hometown says the model gives partners “a stake in the practice and the authority to make impactful decisions,” with hospitals “led by partner doctors who lead with purpose.” The pitch is that you keep a meaningful say in how your practice runs.

A path that fits where you are. Hometown frames its model to work for both the owner who wants out and the owner who wants to stay. For example, Dr.

Deborah Mitchell sold Knollwood Hospital for Pets to Hometown in August 2024 and is now retired — a clean-exit example. A younger owner, by contrast, might take the partnership-and-equity route.

The structure is meant to flex to your timeline.

Two things to test against the marketing. Equity is only as good as the terms attached to it — how it’s valued, when you can sell it, and what governance rights come with it.

And “authority to make decisions” needs definition: which decisions stay with you, and which migrate to the group? Those are negotiation items, not assumptions.

How Hometown acquires and rebrands practices

Hometown grows largely by acquiring existing independent practices and rebranding them under the Hometown name. The pattern is consistent and easy to verify in its own announcements.

Grand Animal Hospital in Gurnee, Illinois became “Hometown Veterinary Partners Gurnee.” Silver Lake Animal Hospital became “Hometown Veterinary Partners Silver Lake.” Best Friends Animal Hospital in Sarasota, Florida became “Hometown Veterinary in Sarasota.”

So sit with what that tells you. The Hometown name does go onto acquired practices in these examples, woven together with the original practice name.

That isn’t a knock — plenty of sellers are happy to fly a shared flag, and Hometown’s version keeps the local name visible alongside its own. But it’s worth being clear-eyed that Hometown’s “local identity” model, in practice, has involved bringing the Hometown brand into the practice name rather than leaving the original name untouched.

If keeping your exact name with no change matters to you, that’s a specific point to raise and to get in writing during negotiation.

Is Hometown a good buyer for your practice?

Hometown Veterinary Partners can be a strong fit for owners who value preserved local identity, a partnership posture, and equity without a buy-in — particularly smaller and mid-sized general practices inside its Midwest and Southeast footprint. As with any buyer, it’s best evaluated head-to-head against a curated group of other qualified bidders so you can see how its terms actually compare before committing.

The fit factors I’d weigh:

• Geography. Practices in or near Minnesota, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina, and Florida sit closest to Hometown’s existing cluster.
• Size. As a roughly 11-to-12-hospital group in active growth mode, Hometown is naturally oriented toward independent general practices rather than the very largest multi-location platforms.
• What you want post-sale. If equity-with-no-buy-in and a partnership role appeal to you, Hometown is built around that. If you want a clean retirement exit, the model accommodates that too.
• Identity. If a preserved local feel matters more to you than the absolute highest headline number, Hometown’s positioning speaks directly to that priority.

None of this answers the only question that pays you, though: what’s the best total deal available for your specific practice? That you can’t know from a single conversation.

Our broader guidance on who to sell your veterinary practice to walks through how to weigh buyer fit against buyer economics.

What does Hometown pay, and what should you negotiate?

Hometown Veterinary Partners does not publish a standard price sheet. Per industry M&A commentary across the PE-backed buyer pool, competitive outcomes for strong multi-doctor general practices in the $2 million-plus revenue range tend to land in the low-teens EBITDA range — but the number for any specific practice depends most on whether other qualified buyers are at the table, and Hometown’s specific offer is always negotiated case by case under confidentiality.

The consistent pattern I see is straightforward. A single buyer facing no visible competition has no structural reason to lead with its strongest cash percentage, its most flexible equity terms, or its firmest identity guarantees in the first conversation.

Inside a properly run competitive process, where every bidder knows others are underwriting the same practice in parallel, those dimensions tend to move. That dynamic isn’t unique to Hometown — it’s simply how every buyer in this market calibrates an offer to the room.

So here’s what I’d put energy into negotiating:

The equity terms, not just the equity. Hometown’s no-buy-in equity is attractive, but get specific on how it’s valued, when there’s a liquidity window, and what governance and information rights come with it. Equity with no clear path to cash is a promise, not a payday.

Earnout protections, if any. An earnout is part of the sale price paid later, only if the practice hits agreed performance targets after closing. If your deal includes one, negotiate protective provisions: a working capital floor, no major operational changes without your consent, and a clean definition of what counts in the EBITDA calculation at the earnout date.

Brand and identity in writing. Given that Hometown’s published examples weave its name into the acquired practice, spell out exactly how your name, signage, and website will be handled. Put it in the agreement, even though it aligns with Hometown’s stated philosophy.

Cash at close versus holdback. Push for as much guaranteed cash at close as the process supports. Where the buyer keeps a portion back — a holdback, paid later over a defined period to secure your promises about the practice — pin down the amount, the timeline, and exactly what would reduce it.

Your post-sale role and non-compete. Define which decisions stay with you, and negotiate the non-compete’s duration and geographic radius so it doesn’t box you out of work you might want to keep doing.

A quick note on the financial-review side, because owners ask. When we prepare a practice for sale, part of the work is a thorough pre-sale financial review on our side of the table — built around the same scrutiny a buyer’s accountants will run, but before any buyer sees your numbers.

That gives us months to clean up anything that wouldn’t survive a deep audit. You shouldn’t be commissioning that audit yourself; that’s preparation work we handle.

Our valuation guide covers how that review feeds the number.

Have an offer from Hometown Veterinary Partners? Get a Free Practice Value Estimate — send us the offer and we’ll decompose the terms, identify what’s typically negotiable, and project what your practice would likely clear in a structured competitive process with the broader qualified buyer pool. No upfront cost, no obligation.

How Hometown compares to the rest of the field

If you’re weighing Hometown, you’re really weighing it against the other buyers who would compete for your practice. Here’s the lay of the land, kept to what’s verifiable and fair.

Buyer	Ownership type	Local brand posture	Best-fit signal
Hometown Veterinary Partners	PE-backed (Briarcliff Capital Partners, per 2023 launch)	Partnership positioning; name woven into acquired practices	Smaller/mid GP practices in the Midwest and Southeast who value identity + equity with no buy-in
Larger national PE-backed groups	PE-backed	Generally preserve local branding	Owners wanting the scale and infrastructure of a national platform
Mars Veterinary Health (VCA, Banfield, BluePearl)	Strategic, family-owned by Mars Inc.	Historically moves practices toward a Mars-network brand over time	Owners comfortable with a long-hold strategic buyer

The honest read on the comparison: Hometown’s edge is the combination of small-group attentiveness, the partnership/identity story, and equity without a buy-in. The trade-off is scale — a roughly 11-to-12-hospital group brings less national infrastructure than the larger platforms, which may or may not matter to you.

The way to settle which buyer is right isn’t to debate it in the abstract. It’s to put the qualified ones in a competitive process and let them surface their best terms side by side.

Our guide on how much private equity is paying for veterinary practices digs into the structure-by-structure economics.

How to prepare before you talk to Hometown

For Hometown specifically, the leverage lives less in the headline multiple and more in the terms — the equity mechanics, the identity guarantees, the autonomy language. That’s good news, because those are exactly the things a structured process is built to sharpen.

Our Elite Selling System runs in three moves. First, before any bidder packet goes out, we audit the standard terms — how the equity is valued and when it pays, what the identity language actually commits to, which decisions you keep.

Second, we invite only the buyers who legitimately compete for your specific practice: from the consolidators we actively track, we hand-select the handful that genuinely fit, the way a doorman with a velvet rope lets in only the right people, and Hometown is invited inside that rope when the practice fits its criteria. Third, the bidders return full term sheets — not just headline numbers — so you can compare cash, equity, identity commitments, and autonomy side by side and choose on the dimensions that matter to you.

The economic result holds across deal types. Practices in the qualifying revenue band that run our process consistently clear materially better total outcomes than the same practice would have cleared by signing the first direct term sheet without exploring the field.

For a deeper walk-through of the full path, see sell my veterinary practice.

The bottom line on Hometown: it’s a credible, growing buyer with a genuine local-identity story and an unusually seller-friendly equity model. Whether it’s the right buyer — and on the right terms — is a question you only answer by seeing how the rest of the field would structure the same practice.

If you’ve got a Hometown offer in hand, or their team has reached out, Get a Free Practice Value Estimate and we’ll lay out the same term-by-term comparison we would for a client across the dinner table.

Frequently asked questions

Who owns Hometown Veterinary Partners? Hometown Veterinary Partners is private equity-backed. It was launched as the first portfolio company of Briarcliff Capital Partners, a Boston-based middle-market private equity firm, in an announcement dated March 2023.

Day-to-day the group is led by founder Keri Kamba, who serves as President and CEO, and is structured as a partnership rather than a conventional roll-up.

Is Hometown Veterinary Partners private-equity backed? Yes. Hometown was created as the inaugural portfolio company of Briarcliff Capital Partners, which targets companies with roughly $1 million to $10 million of EBITDA.

Hometown itself describes its entity as a partnership founded by people who came out of corporate veterinary practices — that’s its positioning, not a statement about its capital backing.

How many locations does Hometown Veterinary Partners have? Roughly 11 to 12 veterinary hospitals, with the group describing itself as still growing. Its footprint spans Minnesota, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, South Carolina, and Florida — a multi-state but regionally clustered Midwest and Southeast presence rather than a nationwide network.

How much does Hometown Veterinary Partners pay for a practice? Hometown does not publish a standard price sheet. Per industry M&A commentary across the PE-backed buyer pool, competitive outcomes for strong multi-doctor general practices in the $2 million-plus revenue range tend to land in the low-teens EBITDA range.

The actual number depends most on whether other qualified buyers are at the table, and Hometown’s specific offer is negotiated case by case under confidentiality.

Where is Hometown Veterinary Partners headquartered? In the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. The group was founded in 2023 as the first portfolio company of Briarcliff Capital Partners, which is based in Boston.

Leadership includes founder and CEO Keri Kamba, a Chief Veterinary Officer, a Director of Mergers and Acquisitions, and a Director of Integrations and Operations.

Does Hometown Veterinary Partners let owners keep equity or autonomy after selling? Per its own materials, Hometown grants equity to partner doctors and hospital directors without any financial obligation on their part, and positions its hospitals as led by partner doctors who hold a stake and the authority to make decisions. Whether and how those terms apply to your specific deal is negotiated case by case in the definitive purchase agreement.

What practices has Hometown Veterinary Partners acquired? Hometown grows largely by acquiring independent practices and rebranding them under the Hometown name. Public examples include Grand Animal Hospital in Gurnee, Illinois (now Hometown Veterinary Partners Gurnee), Silver Lake Animal Hospital, Best Friends Animal Hospital in Sarasota, Florida, and Knollwood Hospital for Pets, whose retiring owner sold to Hometown in August 2024.

Is Hometown Veterinary Partners a good buyer for my practice? It can be a strong fit for owners who value preserved local identity, a partnership posture, and equity without a buy-in — particularly smaller and mid-sized general practices in its Midwest and Southeast footprint. As with any buyer, it’s best evaluated head-to-head against a curated group of other qualified bidders in a competitive process, so you can see how its terms compare before committing.

Sources

Buyer and PE sponsor materials

1. Briarcliff Capital Partners. “Briarcliff Capital Partners Announces First Portfolio Company with Hometown Veterinary Partners.” March 2023. briarcliffpartners.com
2. Briarcliff Capital Partners. “Firm focus and investment criteria.” briarcliffpartners.com
3. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Home.” hometownvetpartners.com
4. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “About Us.” hometownvetpartners.com
5. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Team.” hometownvetpartners.com
6. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Path to Partnership.” hometownvetpartners.com
7. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Path to Partnership — Core Competencies.” hometownvetpartners.com
8. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Grand Animal Hospital Is Acquired and Rebrands to Hometown Veterinary Partners Gurnee.” hometownvetpartners.com
9. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Silver Lake Animal Hospital Is Acquired and Rebrands to Hometown Veterinary Partners Silver Lake.” hometownvetpartners.com
10. Hometown Veterinary Partners. “Sarasota, FL location.” hometownvetpartners.com

Industry M&A research and valuation data

11. Capstone Partners. “Pet Sector M&A Update.” Capstone Partners industry research, 2025-2026.
12. Octus. “Veterinary Services Roll-Up Coverage.” Octus credit research and industry commentary, 2025-2026.