[updated] Brightstar Care Acquired By Peak Rock Capital Affiliate

BrightStar Care has been acquired by an affiliate of Peak Rock Capital, a middle-market private equity firm, in partnership with the company’s founder Shelly Sun Berkowitz.

“I believe our partnership with Peak Rock will help BrightStar Care continue its mission of providing clients with high-quality compassionate care in the home, as well as make investments to facilitate continued growth with existing and new franchisees,” Sun Berkowitz said in a press release statement. “I am looking forward to working with the Peak Rock team during the company’s next stage of growth.”

The financial details of the transactions were not disclosed. JP Morgan and Boxwood Partners served as the financial advisors on the deal.

Founded in 2002, Chicago-based BrightStar Care is a provider of home care, senior living and supplemental staffing. The organization has been deliberately increasing its company-owned footprint of late.

Earlier this year, the company earned a spot on Entrepreneur’s 2025 Franchise 500 ranking.

Additionally, the company reached a milestone, hitting 400 locations across the U.S. in 2024. Less than 10% of franchise companies have been able to reach this scale.

“BrightStar Care stands out because of its unique commitment to clinically led, high quality home care services across its franchisee network,” Spencer Moore, managing director of Peak Rock, said in the press release. “We are excited to partner with Shelly and BrightStar Care management and employees to invest in technology, marketing, and growth initiatives to support the company’s franchisees in serving more patients.”

Peak Rock Capital is a PE firm focused on equity and debt investments in U.S. and European companies. The firm’s previous investments in the health care space include Paragon Healthcare, which provides infusion services through a network of home infusion pharmacies, ambulatory infusion centers, and other specialty pharmacy services, according to the Peak Rock website. Paragon was sold to Elevance Health (NYSE: ELV) last year.

New chapter for BrightStar

Sun Berkowitz launched BrightStar in part to create a “one-stop shop,” enabling clients to access non-medical and medical services through a single at-home care provider, she said in a 2020 interview as part of HHCN’s Changemakers series.

Once BrightStar passed the $2 million revenue mark, the goal to scale the business led to a plan rooted heavily in having a technology platform to track a wide variety of indicators, including financial, customer, employee and clinical dimensions.

“So we launched our first technology platform mid-2004,” Sun Berkowitz told HHCN. “Every franchise location we’ve ever opened has been on that technology platform, which has been really key to being able to gather and disseminate our best practices.”

In recent years, BrightStar Care has continued to lean heavily on data. The company tracks everything from falls to timely care admissions.

“Our investment in data has been very important to boost global performance, but also to boost clinical quality,” Sun Berkowitz said during a panel discussion at the Home Care 100 conference in February. “We have a proprietary platform that has given us this intelligence.”

The company has also formed notable partnerships with the stated goal of creating a stronger pipeline of workers, and extending its reach in the higher-acuity care ecosystem.

BrightStar Care first formed a partnership with Chamberlain University in early 2023.

Last year, the company expanded its partnership with hospital-at-home-enabler Medically Home.

The company also experienced leadership changes when Andrew Ray stepped into the role of CEO last year. He succeeded founder and long-time CEO Sun Berkowitz.

The Peak Rock Capital deal marks the latest chapter for a company that has seen much change, which Sun Berkowitz has embraced.

“I say I run toward change,” she said in her Changemakers interview. “ … Speaking as someone who was an accountant who then started her own business, I had to be comfortable with change personally. Today, in the industry that I’ve chosen to be a part of, health care is changing rapidly, too. We want to be on the precipice of leading that change. And I think BrightStar Care has a history of demonstrating that.”

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