Based in Toronto, Integracare Inc. was founded in 1990 with the goal of providing private nursing and home care services that allow people to live with dignity and comfort in their own homes. Over the following decades, the company evolved from a small operation into one of the city’s largest independent home care providers.
At the same time, PRIVEQ Capital Funds was looking to enter the home care sector. PRIVEQ saw powerful demographic trends reshaping the industry. Canada’s aging population, combined with the reality that more than 95 per cent of people prefer to recover or age at home rather than in hospitals or long-term care facilities, pointed to growing demand for home-based care services for years to come.
“We also saw an industry that was highly fragmented and ripe for consolidation,” says Brad Ashley, managing partner at PRIVEQ. “There were numerous smaller operators across the market, creating an opportunity to build a larger platform through acquisition. We had been tracking Integracare for years and viewed it as the ideal foundation for that strategy. The vision was to strengthen its premium service offering and expand into other parts of Ontario.”
PRIVEQ completed its acquisition of Integracare in 2016. The transaction, however, presented an immediate challenge. “Our approach has always been to back strong management teams and partner with them as they build their businesses,” says Lee Grunberg, partner at PRIVEQ. “In this case, we needed to think differently because Integracare’s founders were preparing to retire.”
Having spent the previous three years searching for health care services investments for PRIVEQ, Grunberg emerged as the natural choice to lead the company into its next chapter. He stepped in as interim president and CEO, and quickly made a bold decision that would help shape Integracare’s future.
Investing in Infrastructure Before Expansion
Two months after taking the helm, Grunberg came to an unavoidable conclusion: if Integracare was going to achieve its long-term ambitions, it would first need to invest heavily in its foundations. “I remember calling Brad and telling him that the investments we needed to make would cut EBITDA in half,” says Grunberg. “We didn’t have an HR department. We didn’t have a finance department. We didn’t have the systems required to support the kind of business we wanted to build. We knew we had to take a step backward before we could move forward.”
Rather than prioritize short-term profitability, PRIVEQ supported the plan. Integracare hired its first HR director within three months and its first finance director within six. The company also implemented AlayaCare, a cloud-based platform that digitized scheduling, client records and other administrative functions, creating the operational infrastructure needed to support a larger organization.
Additionally, Grunberg introduced a philosophy he called “find, win, keep, lift,” designed to make Integracare an employer of choice in an industry often challenged by caregiver shortages and high turnover. The company committed to caregiver development, offering free education, competitive compensation and financial support for health benefits.
Those investments proved invaluable when the pandemic struck in early 2020. Almost overnight, Integracare had to redesign its entire operating model. Caregivers who previously moved between multiple clients could no longer do so because of the risk of cross-contamination. Care plans had to be rewritten and personal protective equipment sourced and delivered across the organization.
By the summer of 2020, the company had stabilized its core home care operations and identified an unexpected opportunity. Integracare launched a corporate nursing division that provided workplace COVID-19 testing and vaccination services for organizations such as Canada Post, Scotiabank and Aritzia. Within a year, the new division was a huge success. “There was tremendous uncertainty during that period, and Lee found opportunities where others might not have,” says Ashley. “Without the decisions he and his team made during those early months of the pandemic, I’m not sure where the business would be today.”
The success of the corporate nursing division also generated capital that allowed Integracare to pursue the consolidation strategy envisioned at the time of acquisition. Working with PRIVEQ and a new investor (Cairn Merchant Partners), Grunberg completed acquisitions of several companies including Living Assistance Services and Eldercare Home Health, expanding Integracare’s presence across the home care sector and positioning it for its next phase of development.
A People-First Model Goes National
That next phase began in October 2025, when Integracare was acquired by Frontline Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm that saw an opportunity to replicate the company’s model across Canada.
The results achieved under PRIVEQ’s ownership made that vision compelling. When PRIVEQ acquired the business in 2016, Integracare employed 70 people. Today, the company has more than 500 employees, an increase of over 700 per cent. Integracare has also built one of the most diverse workplace cultures in the sector: women hold five of the company’s seven senior management positions and the majority of its leadership identify as visible minorities. The company has also been recognized by Great Place to Work Canada as one of the country’s Best Workplaces for Inclusion and Best Workplaces for Women. Perhaps most notably, Integracare has maintained caregiver turnover below 20 per cent in an industry where turnover rates often approach 80 per cent.
“Integracare was a perfect example of the PRIVEQ approach in action,” says Ashley. “The exceptional employee retention and the recognition the company received all reinforced our belief that strong financial results come from investing in people and operating with compassion. That philosophy has always been a key cornerstone of how we build businesses.”
The financial results were equally impressive. After making the deliberate decision to cut EBITDA in half during the first year to invest in people and systems, Integracare increased EBITDA by more than 800 per cent during PRIVEQ’s ownership period. That performance earned the firm the PE Regional Impact Award, Central Canada—Ontario, sponsored by KALOS.
With Grunberg remaining CEO following the transaction, he is now focused on nationwide expansion. “When I stepped into the role, I thought it would be temporary,” he says. “Ten years later, I’m still here because I fell in love with being an operator and with what this company represents. We took a significant risk in those early years, and Brad had the trust and long-term vision to support it. Those investments created the foundation for everything that followed, and I’m excited about where the company goes next.”
