Francisco Del Rio and Diego Silva Import the U.S. Vet Roll-Up Playbook to Chile

The Setup Francisco Del Rio wanted to build, not just operate. At business school he came across the U.S. veterinary roll-up story, an industry where one platform had bolted together roughly 200 clinics and proved that a fragmented, owner-operator trade could be institutionalized. He looked at Chile and saw the same pattern: thousands of independent vets, almost no chains, and almost no management sophistication. The model was mature in America. In Latin America it barely existed. He teamed up with Diego Silva and launched LatamVet, branded in-market as INTEGRAVET. Neither founder came from veterinary medicine. The bet was that the operating playbook, not clinical expertise, was the scarce resource. The Deal LatamVet is not a single acquisition. It is a programmatic roll-up, five clinics closed by November 2024, with a stated goal of fifteen by the end of 2025. Deal sizes are undisclosed, but the targets are classic platform-and-bolt-on economics: owner-operated vet clinics where the founder is the lead technician and the business infrastructure is thin. Two structural challenges shaped how these deals got done: - Trust cycles are longer. In Chile small businesses rarely change hands, and when they do it is usually within a family. Selling to an outside investor group is culturally unfamiliar. Francisco and Diego had to spend far more time in relationship development than a U.S. searcher would to get a seller to the table. - Capital is harder. Chilean investors had not seen a roll-up thesis before. There was no SBA equivalent, no stack of private credit funds competing to finance serial acquirers. Each close required educating capital providers from scratch, which directly constrained pace. Operating Moves The value creation thesis is the same thesis that has worked in U.S. vet, dental, and HVAC consolidations: - Install a real CRM and recall system. Most independent clinics run on paper and memory. - Put in variable compensation tied to performance, so vets and technicians share the upside of growth rather than being salaried cost centers. - Bring in procurement leverage across clinics for drugs, food, and consumables. - Standardize pricing, hours, and service menus without destroying the local brand a founder built. - Unify the portfolio under a platform identity (INTEGRAVET) while letting clinic-level goodwill stay intact. None of this is novel. The edge is being the first to do it at all in this geography. Operating Lessons - If you are importing a proven model into a new market, budget for slower deal cycles before you budget for synergies. The U.S. comp on time-to-close is not your comp. - Capital scarcity is a feature for the first mover and a bug for everyone who follows. Lock in relationships with the few investors who will underwrite a roll-up thesis before competitors show up bidding on the same clinics. - You do not need to be a vet to buy vet clinics, but you need a credible clinical partner or medical director structure, especially in markets where regulators and sellers expect a practicing professional on the...