Today’s Veterinary Business Staff

Inspire Veterinary Partners, a practice consolidator that ventured to Hawaii to purchase its first clinic, wants to own 50 hospitals nationwide within five years.
Team members who work at least 20 hours a week at newly acquired Kauai Veterinary Clinic or other Inspire-owned veterinary hospitals can receive stock options in the parent company, part of what co-chairman Stith Keiser called “a new model of ownership.”
“It’s only fitting that our teams share in the ownership of what we are collectively building,” Inspire CEO Kimball Carr said.
Both men have veterinary industry experience. Keiser is CEO of Blue Heron Consulting, where Carr served as the director of field learning and development. Carr is a former regional vice president with the Banfield Pet Hospital network and a former consultant for Trupanion pet health insurance.
Inspire is working with Star Circle Advisory Group to line up investors and identify other money sources as the company looks for companion animal practices ripe for purchase.
“We’ve taken on private money, and Star Circle is helping us raise that,” Carr said. “We’re looking at institutional money, and Star Circle is helping us engage in those conversations. We’ve also got a number of strong banking relationships. Banks have indicated their desire to work with us and build packages that help us grow.”
The price paid for 42-year-old Kauai Veterinary Clinic, a multidoctor practice in the town of Lihue, was not revealed. The transaction closed in February.
Inspire Veterinary Partners is privately owned, at least for now.
“The goal for us is to go public,” Carr said. “We’ve got a strategy that is a three- to five-year window.
“We’re not looking to exit as a leadership team … and turn it over to someone else,” he said. “The public strategy is one that allows us to sustain the growth of the company and give value back to the teams that made it all possible.”
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