Selling Your Veterinary Practice to PetVet365: A 2026 Vet Owner’s Guide

Key takeaways

• PetVet365 is a veterinarian-owned de novo network — it builds new hospitals from the ground up rather than acquiring established independent practices. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Lexington, KY, PetVet365 has grown to more than 20 hospitals across Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania per company materials.
• The 40% local ownership model is PetVet365’s defining structural feature: each hospital is 40% owned and managed by local veterinarian Pod and Hospital Owners, distinguishing it from both traditional PE-backed consolidators and standard franchise arrangements.
• No Mars Veterinary Health affiliation is confirmed by any primary source. Mars Veterinary Health’s publicly disclosed network includes VCA, Banfield, and BluePearl — PetVet365 does not appear among them. WP Global Partners is the confirmed investor per public portfolio disclosures.
• For owners considering a 2026 sale, PetVet365’s de novo orientation means the traditional PE-backed buyer pool — NVA, VetCor, Mission Pet Health, AmeriVet, and others — is the more relevant market for an established practice with existing EBITDA. The way to discover which buyer pays the most for your specific practice is a structured competitive process.
• PetVet365 is the first and only 100% Fear Free Certified veterinary hospital network in the United States per Fear Free certification records — a clinical-culture credential that signals their operating approach, not a buyer-profile credential for your existing practice sale.

When a vet sits down with me and asks about selling your veterinary practice to PetVet365, the conversation usually starts with a correction. Not a correction about anything they did wrong — just a correction about what PetVet365 actually is, which turns out to be different from what most owners assume when the name surfaces.

Most buyers in this market are acquirers. They find an established practice, underwrite its historical EBITDA — that’s the pure operating profit before taxes and accounting choices — and make an offer.

PetVet365 works differently. The company was built to grow by opening new hospitals, not by purchasing existing ones.

That single fact changes almost everything about how a selling owner should think about them.

What follows is the same picture I’d lay out over dinner. Who PetVet365 is, what their model actually does, what the 2026 primary sources actually confirm about their ownership and growth strategy, and what all of it means if you’re an established owner thinking about your exit options this year.

In short: selling your veterinary practice to PetVet365 in 2026 requires understanding that PetVet365’s primary growth engine is de novo (new-build) hospitals — which affects how relevant they are as a direct buyer for your existing practice, and where your attention should go instead.

What is PetVet365 and how did it get started?

PetVet365 is a veterinarian-owned and -led hospital network founded in 2019 by a group of veterinarians who built their careers in independent ownership. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky and grew from a deliberate counter-bet against the direction the rest of the industry was taking.

By the late 2010s, private equity consolidation of veterinary practices had reached the point where practicing veterinarians were watching ownership opportunities disappear. The major PE-backed platforms were acquiring independently-owned hospitals at a pace that left fewer and fewer options for employed vets who wanted to own their own location.

That’s the gap PetVet365 was built to fill.

Per PetVet365 company materials and public statements from co-founders, the founding thesis was explicit: through consolidation, veterinarians have lost the ability to own and lead their own hospitals and teams, and that the industry should be veterinary-owned and veterinary-led. The company was designed structurally so that ownership was accessible — not to a PE fund, but to the veterinarians on the clinical floor.

The founding team included Katie Smith, DVM, Megan Garrison, BVSc, Dr. Andrea Johnson (who serves as Chief Medical Officer), and Dr.

Bev Porter and Todd Marcum, long-time colleagues who had worked together building independent veterinary groups for more than 20 years before founding PetVet365. Their collective experience as independent owners shaped every structural decision in the PetVet365 model.

By 2025-2026, PetVet365 had grown to more than 20 hospitals per dvm360 reporting, with a footprint spanning Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Lexington and expansion actively underway toward Atlanta, Dallas, and Denver. WP Global Partners has invested in the company per WP Global Partners’ public portfolio disclosures.

How the PetVet365 ownership model actually works in 2026

The structural core of PetVet365 is the Pod and Hospital Ownership model, and it’s worth understanding in detail because it’s genuinely different from anything the major PE-backed consolidators do.

Here’s how it works. Every PetVet365 hospital carries 40% local ownership split between two roles: the Pod Owner and the Hospital Owner.

The other 60% is held at the network level.

The Hospital Owner is the veterinarian who leads that specific location day-to-day. They run the hospital, manage the team, and deliver care — and they share in profit distributions from that hospital.

Ownership begins when the lease is signed per PetVet365 company materials, meaning the Hospital Owner is an equity holder from the start, before the first patient walks through the door.

The Pod Owner is a more senior role: a seasoned veterinarian with multi-unit experience who mentors and oversees multiple hospitals within a geographic region. The Pod Owner holds ownership in each hospital they oversee and draws both clinical compensation and a share of profit distributions across their pod.

Both owners receive competitive base compensation for their clinical and operational work in addition to their equity distributions. The career pathway is explicit: associate veterinarians can join a PetVet365 hospital with a path to Hospital Owner status when they’re ready, and Hospital Owners can eventually move to Pod Owner as they develop the operational experience for multi-unit oversight.

The practical implication for a selling owner evaluating this model: PetVet365’s approach to ownership is designed for veterinarians joining the network to build, not for existing practice owners who want to sell a going-concern practice and exit. The equity structure is built around de novo growth — new builds, new leases, new client bases built from scratch — not around acquiring your existing 20-year practice with its established client relationships and multi-year EBITDA history.

That doesn’t make PetVet365 a less interesting company. It makes them a different kind of company.

Understanding the distinction is exactly what an informed owner needs before evaluating their 2026 exit.

Is PetVet365 affiliated with Mars Veterinary Health?

This question comes up because PetVet365 appears on some industry consolidator tracking lists with a “Mars-affiliated” notation. The research trail does not support that characterization.

Mars Veterinary Health‘s own published portfolio includes VCA Animal Hospitals, Banfield Pet Hospital, BluePearl Pet Hospital, AniCura, Linnaeus, and related global brands — per Mars Veterinary Health’s official company materials. PetVet365 does not appear on that list.

Mars Veterinary Health’s network spans more than 3,000 clinics globally across 20-plus countries per company disclosures; the brands are identified by name in their public materials.

PetVet365’s own website and press materials make no reference to a Mars affiliation. The confirmed investor in PetVet365 is WP Global Partners — a private equity firm that acquired PetVet365 as part of its portfolio and whose own portfolio page lists PetVet365 as an operator of veterinary hospitals executing a de novo strategy.

The bottom line on Mars affiliation: no primary source confirms it. Mars Veterinary Health‘s own disclosures list their actual portfolio companies by name, and PetVet365 is not among them. WP Global Partners’ investment is what the evidence supports.

This matters for a seller because the question “who is behind PetVet365” affects how you evaluate any offer from them — what the long-term ownership trajectory looks like, what exit horizon the capital structure implies, and how the integration playbook will evolve. Those questions get answered by WP Global Partners’ history and portfolio strategy, not by any Mars connection.

De novo vs. acquisition: the distinction that matters for your 2026 sale

The most practically useful thing I can tell a selling owner about PetVet365 is this: the difference between a de novo growth model and an acquisition-driven consolidation model is the difference between a buyer who wants to build something new and a buyer who wants to buy what you’ve already built.

De novo — building a new hospital from the ground up — means starting with zero clients, zero historical revenue, and zero established EBITDA. The business model relies on building those things over time in a market where the network has identified unmet demand.

That is structurally different from what the traditional PE-backed consolidators do. When NVA, VetCor, Mission Pet Health, AmeriVet, or the other major acquirers buy a practice, they’re paying for the existing EBITDA stream — the profit history your practice has built over years or decades of established operations, an existing client base, a trained team, a community reputation.

That’s what they’re underwriting and paying a multiple of EBITDA for.

Your EBITDA multiple — the multiplier buyers apply to your practice’s EBITDA to set the price — is the central pricing mechanism in any established practice sale. A well-run general practice in the $2 million-plus revenue range in 2026 typically attracts multiples in the low-to-mid-teens when run through a proper competitive process, per industry M&A commentary from Octus and Capstone Partners‘ April 2026 Pet Sector M&A Update.

That pricing reflects years of built practice value. A de novo operator isn’t buying that value — they’re building their own.

For an owner with 15 or 20 years of established practice behind them, the relevant buyer pool is the one that pays for what you’ve built. The way to find out which buyer in that pool pays the most for your specific practice is to put them all in a competitive process at the same time, where they each underwrite the same financials in parallel.

That’s where the number moves.

See our guide to how much PE buyers are paying for veterinary practices in 2026 for the full multiple landscape.

The Fear Free certification and what it signals

PetVet365 is the first and only veterinary hospital network to achieve 100% Fear Free certification across all its hospitals and team members, per Fear Free certification records. This milestone was announced in 2022 per PRWeb documentation and has been maintained as the network has grown.

Fear Free certification means every team member in every PetVet365 hospital has been trained and credentialed in protocols designed to prevent fear, anxiety, and stress in animals during veterinary care. It’s a clinical-culture credential that requires ongoing maintenance — not a one-time designation.

For a selling owner evaluating PetVet365’s model, the Fear Free distinction tells you something specific about how the company thinks about veterinary medicine: the clinical experience for the patient is a foundational design element, not an afterthought. The exam rooms are designed around animal comfort — set up like living rooms rather than clinical procedure spaces, with pets examined wherever they’re most comfortable rather than on a cold stainless steel table.

This culture is unusual enough in the US veterinary landscape that it’s worth noting for owners who care about what the post-sale clinical environment looks like — not because it changes the sale math for your existing practice, but because it signals what a practice that joins the PetVet365 network is signing up for operationally and culturally.

For a seller who is retiring or transitioning ownership, the question of post-sale clinical culture is sometimes secondary. For a seller who is selling a majority stake and staying on in a continuing clinical role, the operating culture of the buyer matters considerably.

PetVet365’s Fear Free commitment is real and documented. It shapes what practice life inside their network looks like.

What the 2026 market means for selling owners who have heard about PetVet365

The veterinary practice M&A market in 2026 is not what it was at peak-consolidation in 2021-2022. But it is still a seller’s market for well-run established practices.

Capstone Partners’ April 2026 Pet Sector M&A Update documents renewed deal activity heading into Q1 2026, with the PE-backed buyer pool running active pipelines across the GP and specialty segments. Octus’s 2025 sector research shows private credit exposure to veterinary platforms at $3.1 billion in principal as of Q3 2025 — meaningful capital looking for deployment opportunities.

Corporate ownership now accounts for roughly 25 to 50 percent of general veterinary practices and approximately 75 percent of specialty and emergency clinics per Octus sector analysis.

That capital environment means established practices with clean financials, stable multi-doctor operations, and EBITDA above $300,000 are still attracting serious institutional attention. The buyer pool is more selective than in 2021 — fewer buyers are willing to pay peak multiples for practices with single-doctor dependency, weak revenue trends, or messy normalized financials — but the qualified practices are still clearing competitive numbers.

The practical takeaway for an owner who has been tracking PetVet365: the relevant question for your 2026 sale decision isn’t whether PetVet365 would be a buyer for your established practice — based on the available evidence, their primary growth vehicle isn’t acquiring established practices. The relevant question is which of the traditional PE-backed and strategic acquirers would pay the most for your specific practice profile, and how to find out.

That answer only surfaces inside a structured competitive process where multiple qualified buyers underwrite the same practice in parallel.

See our veterinary practice consolidators guide for the full landscape of active acquirers in the 2026 market.

Should you explore PetVet365 as part of your 2026 sale process?

The honest answer depends on what kind of sale you are running.

If you are an established owner looking to maximize the value of what you’ve built — your client base, your team, your EBITDA history — and exit in a way that generates the best possible economic outcome from that built value, then the traditional PE-backed acquirers are your primary relevant market. PetVet365’s model is oriented toward building new hospitals, not acquiring established ones.

Including them in a competitive process as a bidder for an established practice is not how their capital is deployed.

If you are a younger owner or an employed associate considering a transition into ownership through a different structure — one where you join an existing network and co-own a new hospital alongside a shared-services infrastructure rather than buying your way into an existing practice — then PetVet365’s Pod and Hospital Owner model is worth understanding on its own terms.

These are different situations. Most owners who reach us are in the first category: they’ve built something over many years and want to understand what the market will actually pay for it.

For them, the answer involves running a competitive process against the pool of buyers who specifically acquire established going-concern practices.

The sell my veterinary practice guide covers the full decision framework for established owners.

What our Elite Selling System does for owners navigating this market

When we take on a veterinary practice sale, the first thing I do is map the actual universe of buyers for your specific practice profile. That means understanding which buyers are actively acquiring in your geography and revenue range right now — not which buyers have the highest name recognition or the longest industry track record.

For an established general practice in the $2 million-plus revenue range, the relevant bidder pool in 2026 includes the major PE-backed consolidators who specifically acquire established practices: NVA, VetCor, Mission Pet Health, AmeriVet, Alliance Animal Health, Heartland Veterinary Partners, and the regional players whose geographic footprint matches your market. 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 competitive bidding window inside that qualified group.

That process — the Elite Selling System — produces a term-by-term comparison across cash at close, earnout structure and protective provisions, rollover equity terms, non-compete scope, post-sale clinical autonomy, and brand-handling commitments. The seller sees the full picture across every qualified bidder in parallel.

The economic result is consistent: established practices that run our process clear materially better total outcomes — typically multiple seven figures above what the same practice would have netted from a single direct offer — because competition is the mechanism that moves every dimension of the deal.

Understanding where PetVet365 fits in the buyer landscape is part of that work. So is understanding where they don’t fit — and focusing the competitive process on the buyers who do.

Get a Free Practice Value Estimate →

If you’re evaluating your 2026 exit options, the most valuable first step is a clear-eyed picture of what your practice would actually clear in a structured competitive process. That’s what we deliver: a verified, market-tested valuation anchored in what real buyers in the current market are paying for practices with your specific financial profile.

Our engagement is success-based — no upfront fees, no retainer. We’re compensated only when a deal closes, and only out of the value we create above what you would have walked away with on your own.

That alignment is the structure we built the firm around.

For context on the broader decision between sale paths and buyer types, see our who to sell your veterinary practice to guide and our veterinary practice earnout and rollover equity guide.

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Frequently asked questions

What is PetVet365?

PetVet365 is a veterinarian-owned and -led hospital network founded in 2019 and headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. The company builds new veterinary hospitals through a de novo growth model — opening fresh locations rather than acquiring established practices.

Each hospital is 40% locally owned by veterinarian Pod and Hospital Owners. PetVet365 is the first and only 100% Fear Free Certified veterinary hospital network in the United States and has grown to more than 20 hospitals across Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and beyond as of 2025-2026 per company materials.

Does PetVet365 acquire existing veterinary practices in 2026?

PetVet365’s primary growth model is de novo — building new hospitals from the ground up rather than acquiring established independent practices. Owners of existing practices considering a sale in 2026 should understand that PetVet365 operates differently from traditional PE-backed consolidators whose core strategy centers on acquiring existing practices.

If you own an established independent practice and are exploring buyer options, the broader pool of PE-backed and strategic acquirers is the more relevant market to engage through a structured competitive process.

Who owns PetVet365?

PetVet365 is a veterinarian-owned and -led network founded by a team of veterinarians including Katie Smith, DVM, Megan Garrison, BVSc, Dr. Andrea Johnson, and colleagues.

WP Global Partners, a private equity firm, has invested in PetVet365 per WP Global Partners’ public portfolio disclosures. Each individual PetVet365 hospital is 40% locally owned by veterinarian Pod and Hospital Owners who operate under the network’s shared services model.

How is PetVet365 different from traditional PE-backed veterinary consolidators?

PetVet365 differs from traditional PE-backed consolidators in two key ways. First, it grows primarily through de novo hospital builds rather than acquiring existing practices — a fundamentally different capital deployment strategy.

Second, it embeds local veterinarian ownership into each hospital (40% to the Pod and Hospital Owner team), which is structurally distinct from the 100%-acquisition model that most major PE-backed groups use. For an owner evaluating exit options in 2026, the practical implication is that PetVet365 is less likely to be a bidder for an established independent practice than NVA, VetCor, Mission Pet Health, or the other major traditional acquirers.

What is the PetVet365 Pod and Hospital Owner model?

In PetVet365’s ownership structure, each hospital is 40% locally owned and managed by a Pod Owner and a Hospital Owner. The Pod Owner is a seasoned veterinarian responsible for mentoring and overseeing multiple hospitals within a geographic region.

The Hospital Owner leads the day-to-day operations of a specific location. Both share in profit distributions alongside their clinical compensation.

The remaining 60% is held at the network level by PetVet365 and its investors. This structure is designed to make veterinary ownership accessible without the full capital commitment of buying an independent practice outright.

Is PetVet365 affiliated with Mars Veterinary Health?

No primary source — including Mars Veterinary Health‘s own company page, PetVet365’s own website, or any dated press release — confirms a Mars affiliation for PetVet365. Mars Veterinary Health’s publicly disclosed network includes VCA, Banfield, BluePearl, AniCura, Linnaeus, and related brands.

PetVet365 does not appear among them. The confirmed investor in PetVet365 is WP Global Partners per public portfolio disclosures.

Any claim of Mars affiliation should be verified against current primary sources before acting on it.

What should I know about PetVet365 if I’m considering selling my veterinary practice in 2026?

If you own an established independent practice and are evaluating a 2026 sale, the key fact to understand about PetVet365 is that their primary growth vehicle is de novo (new builds), not acquisition of existing practices. That makes PetVet365 less relevant as a direct buyer for most established owners compared to the major PE-backed acquirers.

The buyers most likely to pay a competitive price for a well-run established practice are the traditional consolidators who underwrite existing EBITDA — and the way to discover which one pays the most for your specific practice is a structured competitive process with multiple qualified bidders.

How much could I get for selling my veterinary practice in 2026?

Competitive outcomes for strong multi-doctor general practices in the $2 million-plus revenue range tend to land in the low-to-mid-teens EBITDA range across the major PE-backed buyer pool in 2026, per industry M&A commentary from Octus and Capstone Partners. Single-location practices with strong financials and clean EBITDA tend to attract multiples in the high single to low double digits.

The most reliable way to discover the true market value of your specific practice is a structured competitive process with multiple qualified buyers underwriting the same practice in parallel — not a single direct offer.

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Sources

Industry M&A research and valuation data

1. Capstone Partners. “Pet Sector M&A Update — April 2026.” capstonepartners.com
2. Octus. “Private-Credit Exposure to Veterinary Rollups Shows Growing Dispersion; VSOs Under Increasing Pressure.” 2025. octus.com

PetVet365 company materials and public disclosures

3. PetVet365. “About Us.” petvet365.com
4. PetVet365. “Veterinary Careers and Ownership.” petvet365.com
5. PetVet365. “Fear Free Veterinary Experience.” petvet365.com
6. PRWeb. “PetVet365 Becomes First Fear Free Certified Veterinary Hospital Network.” 2022. prweb.com
7. dvm360. “PetVet365 Celebrates Opening Its 21st Hospital.” dvm360.com
8. dvm360. “PetVet365 Becomes First Fear Free Certified Hospital Network.” dvm360.com

Investor and ownership disclosures

9. WP Global Partners. “PetVet365 Portfolio Profile.” wpglobalpartners.com

Mars Veterinary Health company disclosures

10. Mars Veterinary Health. “Our Companies.” marsveterinary.com
11. Mars Veterinary Health. “Who We Are.” marsveterinary.com

Veterinary profession and market data

12. Fear Free. “Fear Free Certified Veterinary Practice.” fearfree.com
13. Today’s Veterinary Business. “What a Year It Was — 2024 Veterinary Industry Review.” todaysveterinarybusiness.com