Houlihan Lokey Advises Dentive

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Dentive Holdings, LLC (Dentive) has received strategic growth investment from HGGC. The transaction closed on December 23, 2022.

Founded in 2019 by Tom Clark and Austin McFee, Dentive was built to disrupt the dental support organization (DSO) industry. With its unique joint-ownership approach, partner doctors are equity owners with full clinical autonomy to continue to run their practices. This innovative model has fueled Dentive’s rapid growth to nearly 70 locations across nine states. To date, all of Dentive’s partner practices have joined the company via referral, demonstrating the unique community Dentive is building.

Dentive’s business model is differentiated by:

• Doctor Ownership: Dentive’s partners maintain local ownership in their practices. Partner doctors are also offered the opportunity to invest in the Dentive platform alongside HGGC.

• Community: Dentive seeks like-minded doctor-owners who bring a growth mindset to their practices, careers, and the Dentive community.

• Autonomy: Dentive’s partners retain full clinical autonomy as owner-operators of their practices. In the background, Dentive provides key support services on an on-demand basis.

• Growth: The common theme among all of Dentive’s partner practices is the desire to grow even faster. Dentive enables this “freedom to fly” by providing ongoing education, support, and capital to its partners.

HGGC is a leading middle-market private equity firm with more than $6.8 billion of cumulative capital commitments. Based in Palo Alto, California, HGGC is distinguished by its advantaged investing approach that enables the company to source and acquire scalable businesses through partnerships with management teams, founders, and sponsors who reinvest alongside HGGC, creating a strong alignment of interests. Since its inception in 2007, HGGC has completed more than 500 platform investments, add-on acquisitions, recapitalizations, and liquidity events with an aggregate transaction value of more than $68 billion.

Houlihan Lokey’s Healthcare Group is among the largest dedicated healthcare investment banking groups in the world. In 2022, the group closed 51 transactions and was ranked by Refinitiv as the No. 1 advisor for global healthcare M&A transactions under $1 billion.* This transaction builds on Houlihan Lokey’s leading track record in the dental sector specifically, having advised on more than 50 dental transactions globally.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Dentive and assisted in initiating, structuring, and negotiating the transaction on its behalf.

*Excludes accounting firms and brokers.