Bahraini alternative investment firm Investcorp said Wednesday it has led a Rs 545-crore ($67 million) Series D investment round in Global Dental Services Ltd, which operates as Clove Dental.
Tybourne Capital, an Asia-based global growth investor and other new and existing shareholders are also investing alongside Investcorp. This marks Investcorp’s fourth healthcare investment in India and its first in the dental industry in the country.
Clove Dental was founded a little over a decade ago by its current CEO, Amarinder Singh. The company owns and operates 340 clinics across 24 cities and 12 states in India. Organized in clusters of 15 to 30 clinics, each cluster has dedicated implantologists, orthodontists, prosthodontists, endodontists, periodontists, oral surgeons, pedodontists and general dentists.
Clove Dental also operates mobile dental clinics to provide dental care to the under-served communities.
Recently, the group also launched a Direct to Consumer (D2C) brand called LoveMySmile (LMS), focused on smile correction products and solutions which include aligners, braces and teeth whitening solutions. LMS offers a dentist-led solution for smile correction through a combination of D2C and in-clinic procedures.
Gaurav Sharma, Head of Private Equity, India at Investcorp, said, “Today, the Indian dental services market is worth $3 billion. It is highly fragmented with large hospitals and dental chains accounting for under 10% of all practices, although this number is expected to double in the next five years. Investing in a single specialty segment, within healthcare, aligns well with our thesis of backing scaled and differentiated assets.”
Investcorp had earlier concluded three healthcare deals in India: V-Ensure Pharma Tech, Nephroplus (a dialysis chain) and ASG Eye Hospitals, where Investcorp recently sold its entire stake to General Atlantic and Kedaara. Investcorp has separately also invested in Acura, Germany’s second largest dental platform.
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