Fresh Clinics, a network of independent medical spas that share medical and compliance infrastructure, announced on October 7, 2026 that it had acquired Spakinect, a US provider of telehealth Good Faith Exams for aesthetic practices.
The companies did not disclose the price or other financial terms. The announcement, datelined Austin, Texas, said the deal was backed by Ellerston Capital, which it described as an existing investor.
Both brands will keep operating separately under their founding teams. Spakinect co-founders Paulina Riedler and Alain Gazaui stay on to run the business, its nurse practitioners remain W-2 employees, and its software integrations with Zenoti, Boulevard and Aesthetic Record stay in place.
What Spakinect built
Aesthetic practices generally need a licensed clinician to assess a patient and clear a treatment before it is performed, a step the industry calls a Good Faith Exam. Spakinect lets clinics run that check over video: a patient is connected on demand to one of the company's licensed providers, who evaluates the planned treatments, documents medical clearance and syncs the record to the clinic's software, without the clinic having to share its appointment calendar.
Spakinect was founded in 2012 by Gazaui, its chief executive, and Riedler, a registered nurse. It is based in San Diego and, according to Built In, has around 50 staff. The founders started it after watching med spas run into trouble with medical boards over treatment approvals.
A 2019 case study by its video vendor VSee gives a sense of the early scale. Gazaui said then that he was prompted partly by a physician friend who lost his licence after a medical board found no prior patient evaluations had been done. At the time Spakinect handled an average of about 180 patients a day, up from around 20, and had issued more than 90,000 treatment approvals. Those figures came from the company and were not independently checked.
According to the acquisition announcement, Spakinect has completed more than 1.56 million Good Faith Exams and covers more than 170 treatments across 40 states. In an interview published in May 2026, the company described itself as the largest provider of such exams in the country. Its earlier growth came state by state; in 2022, for example, it announced an expansion of its virtual exam service to Arizona.
“Together with Spakinect, we can ensure practitioners never have to carry that responsibility alone.”
Why Fresh Clinics is buying
Fresh Clinics was founded in 2018 by two doctors, John Holbrook and John Delaney, who is chief executive. It describes itself as a US company with Australian origins and offers independent practitioners clinical oversight, compliance support, training, product supply and business services.
Telehealth exams were already one of the services Fresh Clinics offered. Adding Spakinect gives it a large US provider network, so that it can sell independent clinics a single package covering medical directorship, Good Faith Exams, clinical training and preferred pricing on products from key suppliers. Over time, Spakinect members are due to get access to that wider offering.
Delaney said practice owners too often handle compliance, medical directorship and patient safety on their own, and that every clinic, however small, should have the oversight it needs to operate safely. Riedler said joining Fresh Clinics would give Spakinect's members broader clinical support while keeping the clinical standards the company was built on.
What happens to customers
For existing Spakinect clinics, little changes on day one. Members keep their current contacts, services and integrations, and the brand continues under the same leadership. The companies did not say whether pricing will change or when the combined offering will be available.
Regulation is pushing consolidation
The companies tied the deal to a wave of state rules on aesthetic medicine, naming New Jersey S2996, Indiana SB 282 and Texas HB 3749. These laws put more pressure on independent practices to show proper medical oversight and compliance, which favours providers that can offer exams, supervision and documentation at scale.
Neither company has publicly reported venture funding rounds for Spakinect, and the announcement did not say how much Ellerston Capital contributed to the transaction.
