Ardian, the French private investment firm, has taken a majority stake in Pflegia, a Berlin platform that matches nurses and other care staff with employers. The deal was announced on July 15, 2026 and was led by Ardian's growth team.
The price was not disclosed. Munich investment company U.C.A., which according to deutsche-startups.de held about 57.5% of Pflegia before the deal, said the sale of its majority holding closed on July 8, 2026. U.C.A. stays on as a shareholder and reported a book gain and a net cash inflow each in the mid-double-digit millions of euros.
Pflegia's three founders, Lennart Steuer, Felix Westphal and Masoud Shahryari, remain at the company and will run it together with Ardian's growth team.
What Pflegia built
Pflegia was founded in 2019 and calls its model reverse recruiting. Instead of applying to job ads, nurses and care workers list their qualifications and what they want from a job, and Pflegia's matching algorithm suggests suitable employers, who then approach the candidates.
Pflegia describes the approach as AI-supported, and it built the matching software itself. The company focuses on permanent jobs and says it does not place temporary agency staff. Employers pay a fee only when a hire is made. In 2024 it launched Praxia, a separate platform for staff in doctors' and dentists' practices.
By its own count, Pflegia has more than 900,000 registered health care workers and works with about 10,000 care facilities across Germany. Trending Topics reported that it places around 1,000 care workers in permanent jobs each month and currently lists about 30,000 open positions.
Why Ardian is buying
Germany has a long-running shortage of nurses and care staff, which has raised demand for faster ways to hire. Ardian said it would support the founders in developing the platform, building out its AI technology, scaling the organisation and expanding abroad.
Romain Chiudini and Geoffroy de La Grandière, managing directors in Ardian's growth team, praised the founders' ability to execute and their knowledge of the sector, according to Trending Topics. They said they want to grow Pflegia from a national leader into a European one, both organically and through acquisitions.
The founders said in a statement that they wanted to speed up international growth, strengthen the company's AI skills and take the Pflegia model into new markets.
The buyer and the seller
Ardian was founded in 1996 and says it manages or advises about $200 billion for more than 1,920 investors from 22 offices. Trending Topics reported that Pflegia is its second growth deal in a short period, after an investment in Spain, and adds to its presence in Germany.
U.C.A. is a Munich investment company that had backed Pflegia as its largest shareholder. Its half-year results to June 30, 2026, published on July 20, did not yet include the gain from the sale.
Accounting and advisory firm Rödl said it worked for Pflegia on the sale, preparing a financial factbook for the process.
A busy market for health care hiring
Online recruiting for health care has drawn growing interest from investors in Germany, where clinics and care homes compete hard for qualified staff. Startbase said the deal showed continued appetite among international growth investors for AI-driven platforms in health care, especially those that address staff shortages.
For Pflegia's users, the immediate change is in ownership rather than in the product. The founders remain in charge, and the company plans to take its model into other European markets with Ardian's backing.
The deal also gives U.C.A. a large return on its holding. The Munich firm said the proceeds from the sale were not yet reflected in its first-half figures, which showed a small pre-tax loss of about €150,000 (about $170,000) and free liquidity of about €4.8 million (about $5.5 million) at the end of June.
