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In the last two years, multiple senior living institutional investors and regional financial firms have launched new brokerage, investment and lending platforms, which I believe is an indicator of the industry’s improving financial health.
Last month, I wrote about how a “perfect storm” is unlocking the next senior living M&A cycle and signs of an improved transaction market are plentiful. Occupancy this year continues to climb due to an influx of demand from the baby boomer generation.
In 2025, that is translating into “more institutional interest in seniors as an asset class than there ever has been,” BWE National Director of Seniors Housing and Care Ryan Stoll recently told me.
BWE launched a senior housing investment sales platform in 2023 after successfully building a senior housing debt and structured finance platform two years earlier.
Meanwhile, senior living ownership groups have shuffled their operating partners to improve performance and drive revenue and margin growth. I believe this has set the stage for an investment climate that is filled with greater acquisition opportunities and a way for owners and operators to find better alignment in operations and financial results.
That said, high demand and improving operating fundamentals do not alone spell success for investors. A recent cautionary tale of investing in senior living lies with Inspired Healthcare Capital (IHC) and the operations platform it launched in 2023, Volante Senior Living.
Senior Housing News learned this week that private equity firm Inspired Healthcare Capital is winding down Volante Senior Living and transitioning its communities to other third-party operators. While it’s unclear exactly what led to that decision, the firm also is under “regulatory review” by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is “actively engaging with an investment bank to explore potential strategic alternatives.”
Even without knowing the specifics of the situation, I think it’s safe to say senior living investors want to avoid a similar outcome as they embark on investing in and launching similar platforms in senior living. And so as eager as they are, I also believe companies poised to deploy more dollars in senior living must heed these examples and be careful and intentional about their plans.
In this week’s exclusive, members-only SHN+ Update, I analyze recent moves by institutional and regional investment groups diving into senior living and offer the following takeaways:
– Tracking recent activity by new investment, brokerage and lending groups
– Why new groups entering senior living M&A will drive the sector forward in 2026
– Cautionary tales for investors to learn from
New firms take advantage of investment momentum
In 2025, Senior Housing News tracked multiple groups entering or deepening their exposure in the senior living industry, all with the goal of ramping up in anticipation of a more active transaction market ahead.
In February, former White Oak Healthcare Partners and Lancaster Pollard executives Jason Dopoulos and Ken Gould founded Ikaria Capital Group. The company is launching the lending platform in anticipation of brokerage and investment vehicles spinning up.
“We’re not backed by a larger firm or insurance company but we felt comfortable in the deal flow, the stability of the sector and we can self-sustain 20 staff in a startup phase and there’s enough M&A activity for us to work on,” Dopoulos recently told me.
In May, AEW ramped up its senior housing lending platform, with the platform noting a perceived “financing gap” in senior living investment, according to a report by PERE Credit.
Last month, Macquarie Asset Management launched Health Wave Partners, a new senior living investment platform led by former Ventas (NYSE: VTR) leader John Cobb. In its first year, the platform aims to deploy between $300 million and $500 million to invest in “high quality properties” and work with regional operators that regional operators that have a good financial and operational track record
Over the last 24 months, Macquarie has seen both increased demand, combined by strong operating performance from senior living operators.
“We believe that these factors, as well as the increase in aging population make it an opportune time to launch Health Wave Partners,” Cobb told me.
More firms expanding investments, brokerage and lending services in 2025 is a “positive sign” for the future health of the senior living transaction market, he added.
“We’re seeing significant opportunities as the market continues to expand,” Cobb told me.
Earlier this month, The Kiser Group launched a new senior housing brokerage business, with longtime senior living finance veteran Mark Myers at the helm to focus on all property types in senior living. At the time of the launch, Myers noted that the sector was at a “pivotal point.”
BWE’s platform launch two years ago was meant to attract new investors and bring new capital into the space, amid strong investor sentiment and record deal activity since 2024. For context, the senior living industry in 2024 had 703 publicly announced deals, a 26% increase from 2022 when senior living M&A previously peaked, according to Irving Levin Associates.
BWE has closed or is in the process of closing approximately $2.4 billion in 2025, composed of 75% debt transactions and 25% in investment sales.
This week, Stoll told me that “at least” five groups involved in transactions handled by BWE are new to senior housing investment, including institutional groups that are “excited to grow” on debt-related transactions. This comes as larger institutional partners have been tracking senior housing “for their first entry or re-entry into senior living investment,” Stoll added.
These groups deepening or launching senior living investment opportunities indeed point to this moment as pivotal with baby boomers beginning to enter communities nationwide.
Education central to expanding senior living investment pool
For years, senior living stakeholders have warned that new entrants into the senior living industry must act with intention and careful purpose, or else they could misstep. Although senior living seems like a real estate play on the surface, its operational nature can trip up companies unfamiliar with its intricacies.
That is why educating potential investors plays an integral part in shaping the state of the senior living investment market.
Dopoulos told me that “it takes time to educate” new investor groups that have not yet made the jump into senior living.
“These groups are used to some of these factors and an amount of these groups have not deployed in our sector and that is a huge opportunity,” Dopoulos told me.
Stoll told me BWE plans to hold meetings with ratings agencies later this year to bring more exposure to senior living investment options.
“I think it’s getting them comfortable with operational risk and the landscape of operators and what asset types work,” he said.
For example, groups involved with commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) – a sector typically involved in skilled nursing financing – are now showing potential interest in senior living, Stoll told me.
“We have groups that are interested in teaming up with us to educate these rating agencies to try and tap into another source of liquidity,” he added.
Dopoulos believes the industry is “at the beginning” of a period of strong investment as widespread development remains stalled.
“It feels like, over the next five years, we’re finally hitting the front wave of some of the demand we’ve been talking about for 20 years,” Dopoulos said.
Some new groups entering the industry or deepening their investment, lending and brokerage offerings are taking the strategy of investing in a platform and letting operators do what they do best. But I also think these investors will need to actually know the business of senior living, or else they could underestimate how far their investments can go or what is involved in serving older adults.
In the last few years, there have been a handful of companies that put time and money into a growing platform, only to reverse course a few years into those plans. For example, commercial real estate investor and operator Waterton in 2023 transitioned all of Pathway to Living’s managed communities to other senior living operators after having acquired a controlling stake in the operator only four years prior.
Waterton, which had invested in Pathway for years before buying a controlling stake in the company, made the move “due to market conditions and factors,” according to CEO and Co-Founder David Schwartz.
Inspired Healthcare Capital wound down its Volante platform in a similar way last week, and the company said it did so to “strengthen our financial position and maximize values.”
That’s not to say that either Waterton or Inspired Healthcare Capital didn’t have experience and well-thought plans in senior living. But I assume that neither company expected to have to back off those plans so quickly after their initial investment.
I think the senior living industry is at a pivotal point as more investment groups enter the sector. More companies swimming in the pool means a bigger, better and more resilient transaction market – but only if those companies heed the lessons of those who have come before them.
