Spark Pediatrics Secures $35 Million in Growth Capital, Becomes Largest Provider of Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care for Children with Medical Complexities as Healthcare for Kids Joins Spark Pediatrics
New equity investment made by strategic investors including Florida Opportunity Fund and TGH Ventures, Tampa General Hospital’s venture capital arm and innovation team. Existing investors including Town Hall Ventures, UPMC Enterprises, Memorial Hermann, among other strategics, all participated. Alongside this investment, Spark Pediatrics announced that Healthcare for Kids will join Spark Pediatrics, creating the nation's largest Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care (PPEC) platform for children with medical complexities.
MIAMI LAKES, Fla. — Sept. 30, 2026 — Spark Pediatrics, a leading operator of Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care (PPEC) centers for children with medical complexities, today announced $35 million in growth capital. The new equity investment by the Florida Opportunity Fund and TGH Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Town Hall Ventures and all existing strategic partners including UPMC Enterprises and Memorial Hermann. Spark Pediatrics also announced that Healthcare for Kids, a fellow PPEC operator, will join Spark Pediatrics, bringing together two mission-aligned organizations to build the country's leading platform of care for children with medical complexities.
The new capital will support Spark's continued leading presence in Florida as well as growth in Texas and expansion into Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and other new states. Jeff Soffen, Spark Pediatrics’ Chief Executive Officer, will lead the combined company.
“Every child deserves a childhood, and that belief is the foundation of everything we build at Spark Pediatrics,” Soffen said. “Welcoming Healthcare for Kids alongside our mission driven set of new investors, including additional strategics, lets us bring our model of team-based, high-quality, and family-centered care to more communities than ever. We're proud of what both teams have built, and even more excited about what we'll build together.”
Across the country, families caring for children with medical complexities face a challenge that no family should face, finding access to scarce, high-quality care for their child. Across the United States, there is an ever-growing shortage of skilled pediatric nursing care. Workforce shortages force many home health agencies to limit visits and turn away new patients, often leaving families with few options outside a hospital stay. Families also have limited choice in how their child receives appropriate care. In the majority of the country, children have one option, which is to receive care at home. In innovative states, such as Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana, an additional option exists called Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care (PPEC), a community-based model meant to combine high-quality care while giving children their childhoods back through socialization. Importantly, PPECs offer consistent, every day coverage to meet skilled nursing needs, with access more quickly and readily available due to the team-based model of care.
The PPEC community-based model brings nurses, therapists, and specialists together in one center where children receive consistent, high-quality, team-based care each day alongside their peers and friends. It's a model built around families and children where the mission is to deliver the best care for the child, while giving children the socialization that every family wants for their loved ones. Getting all of the necessary and unique types of care, including skilled nursing and multiple therapies (e.g., speech, occupational, physical), to be organized and delivered in the home can often be hard to attain for a family given logistics and access issues, whereas in a PPEC, care is coordinated and delivered for the child on behalf of the families in one engaging, team-orientated, environment.
“At TGH Ventures, we invest in innovative companies that have the potential to meaningfully improve how care is delivered,” said Rachel Feinman, Senior Vice President, Innovation, Ventures and Digital Solutions and Managing Director of TGH Ventures. “Spark Pediatrics is addressing a critical need for children with medical complexities and their families by expanding access to high-quality, coordinated care in a setting designed around their unique needs. We’re proud to support Spark as it enters this next phase of growth and brings its model of care to more families and communities.”
Together, Spark Pediatrics and Healthcare for Kids become the largest PPEC network in the country, with 20 centers across Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. The combined company maintains its leading presence in Florida, expands more quickly across Texas, and enters new states, including Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Together with its strategic partners, Spark Pediatrics plans to continue its rapid expansion and bring this model of care to many more children and families.
“Our teams have always shared the same mission: making sure children with medical complexities and their families have a true partner in care,” said Joe Harrelson, Founder and CEO, Healthcare for Kids, who will continue at Spark Pediatrics as the Chief Development Officer with a focus on expansion. “Joining Spark Pediatrics lets us extend that mission further, with more resources and a broader network behind every family we serve.”
About Spark Pediatrics
Spark Pediatrics is a leading provider of care for children with medical complexities. Spark is the country’s largest providers of Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care (“PPEC”) centers. PPEC is an innovative community-based care center that provides a team-based, quality-driven, and empathetic environment for children with medical complexities to receive critical pediatric skilled nursing while promoting socialization. Each center integrates therapists onto a child's care team, supporting physical, speech, occupational, and other therapies that are critical for development. Spark Pediatrics is currently the largest PPEC operator in Florida with a growing presence in Texas and other states. Spark Pediatrics serves as a strategic partner to hospital systems, health plans, pediatricians, specialists, and community organizations to deliver the best outcomes for children with medical complexities and their families.
About Healthcare for Kids
Founded in 2022, Healthcare for Kids is a well-established operator of Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care (PPEC) centers serving children with medical complexities across Florida, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Healthcare for Kids is a group of passionate professionals with over 100 years of combined experience in pediatric complex care. The company is deeply committed to securing the best medical outcomes for the children they serve while offering opportunities for them to thrive and blossom in a safe environment. Their teams operate with a focused and highly structured medical protocol, guided by their core pillars and code of ethics.
About Florida Opportunity Fund
The Florida Opportunity Fund provides venture capital to emerging Florida companies, leverages additional capital resources, builds relationships with experienced entrepreneurs to lead growth companies, and partners with other organizations to strengthen the early-stage finance ecosystem in Florida. For more information, please visit www.FloridaOpportunityFund.com.
Media Contact
marketing@sparkpediatrics.com