Aligning health, purpose and profit
The Australian dental services market is a $10.4 billion business. With almost 8,000 unique employing businesses, and 83% of employed dentists working in private practice, it is also a highly fragmented one.
Founded in 2019, Kikada Lane Dental is a unique aggregated specialist healthcare model. It consolidates strategic, clinical and financial interests for individual dental practitioners, while allowing them to maintain clinical control and business oversight.
After two years of operation and by the end of 2021, Kikada Lane Dental had expanded to include 13 locations across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia – a noteworthy result given it was achieved in the middle of a pandemic! Kikada Lane Dental has ambitious growth plans to extend its footprint. Such expansion will enable the delivery of quality care at scale.
A distinctive business model
It might seem obvious, but dentists enter the profession to become clinicians. Then reality hits and they spend much of their time running the business – office management, human resources, IT, finance, insurance, and the rest.
What practitioners really want, is the ability to focus on what matters most to them – delivering better levels of service and upskilling their capabilities in areas of interest. Leaving the many time-consuming tasks to be taken care of by other specialists.
With the Kikada Lane model, superior levels of corporate support are provided across human resources, finance, marketing, operations, training and procurement. This empowers practitioners to operate with autonomy while more effectively deploying treatment and care to their patients.
The model also gives participating practitioners access to a future exit strategy that delivers several tiers of enhanced wealth creation, enabling a better work-life situation and confidence their future is well looked after.
In addition to being a smart business model, Kikada Lane Dental provides significant benefit to the communities it services. In FY18 alone, 72,000 hospitalisations occurred for dental conditions that may have been prevented with earlier treatment. So, a more efficient and effective dental practice is not only good for the profession, it is good for Australians too.
A growth mindset partnership
Just weeks after Kikada Lane Dental first reached out to the Australian Business Growth Fund through a website enquiry, a $10 million investment was made.
Meaningful growth and effective integration of practices requires patient capital investment. With the Australian Business Growth Fund, Kikada Lane Dental can realise its growth potential without giving up control.
As part of the investment, the Australian Business Growth Funds co-head of investments, Ghazaleh Lyari, takes a seat on the board and is committed to ensuring its success. “Kikada Lane Dental has an incredibly experienced team of professionals, and we believe they have what it takes to deliver on their exciting and ambitious plans for the group. We will be here to support them each step of the way.”
The partnership with Kikada Lane Dental marks the Australian Business Growth Fund’s second investment in the past two months and demonstrates the commitment to back growth businesses, irrespective of the industries they operate in.
