Innovate 32: Shore Capital's New Dental DSO

Nashville has quietly become one of the most active launchpads for dental consolidation in the country, and Innovate 32 is among the newest platforms betting on that momentum. Founded in 2024 and backed by a healthcare-focused private equity firm, the dental services organization (DSO) has spent its first two years assembling a network of established general dentistry practices across the South. For operators weighing a partnership and investors tracking where the next regional roll-up emerges, Innovate 32 offers an instructive case study in how a young platform builds early scale.

Overview

Innovate 32 is a Nashville, Tennessee-based dental services organization that partners with growth-minded general dentistry practices, providing business development, finance, marketing, recruiting, benefits, and other administrative support so clinicians can stay focused on patient care.¹ It was formed in 2024 by Shore Capital Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm with offices in Nashville that invests in lower-middle-market healthcare and other sectors.¹ The platform launched through a strategic partnership with Dr. Clint Newman, whose Nashville practice presence traces back to 2001, when Dr. Newman began practicing dentistry.¹

The company positions itself as a doctor-led, partnership-driven model rather than a centralized operator, emphasizing clinical autonomy and a deliberately curated network. That framing places Innovate 32 closer to partnership-oriented groups like MB2 Dental than to the heavily centralized national platforms, though at a far earlier stage of scale than established players such as Heartland Dental or Aspen Dental. Its leadership bench also reflects sector experience: the company has recruited executives with backgrounds at large multi-site groups, including dental operators who previously held senior roles at organizations like Dental Care Alliance.²

For a platform less than two years old, Innovate 32's profile is most useful as a window into the formation stage of a DSO — the period when a sponsor, a founding clinician, and a small management team set the template that later acquisitions will follow.

Company Snapshot

• Headquarters: Nashville, Tennessee¹
• Founded: 2024¹
• Private equity sponsor: Shore Capital Partners (Chicago-based, with Nashville offices)¹
• Clinical focus: General and cosmetic dentistry¹
• Founding partner: Dr. Clint Newman (Gulch Dental Studio, Dental Haus Germantown)¹
• Chief Executive Officer: Josh Johnson¹
• Stated geography: The South and Mid-Atlantic; documented operations currently in Tennessee, Texas, and Florida²
• Model: Partnership-based DSO emphasizing clinical autonomy and shared operational resources¹

Shore Capital is the defining feature of the snapshot. The firm describes itself as an investor in lower-middle-market companies across healthcare, food and beverage, business services, industrial, and real estate, and reports more than $14 billion in assets under management across its funds as of its most recent disclosure.¹ Shore's track record of building multi-site healthcare platforms is the engine behind Innovate 32's expansion thesis — the firm supplies capital, board resources, and a playbook honed across prior provider-based roll-ups.

Innovate 32's management team has been built to execute acquisitions quickly: alongside CEO Josh Johnson, the company appointed a director of business development and a finance leader at launch, and assembled a board of directors drawn from dentistry, multi-site healthcare operations, and direct-to-consumer marketing.²

Footprint Analysis

Innovate 32 does not publish a consolidated office count, so any footprint figure is an estimate. Based on a tally of its announced partnerships, the platform supports approximately ten partner practice groups and an estimated 15 to 20 affiliated offices across three states as of mid-2026 — a figure that should be read as a directional minimum rather than an audited total.²

The geographic distribution is concentrated but multi-state:

• Tennessee (home base): The founding Newman practices in Nashville, plus partnerships in Mt. Juliet, Knoxville, the Maryville area of East Tennessee, and a network of practices across Middle Tennessee.³
• Texas: Fort Bend Dental, a group with five offices across the Houston area — Missouri City, Richmond (Grand Parkway), Rosenberg, the Aliana area of Sugar Land, and Sugar Land City Walk — added in 2025.²
• Florida: Marion Dental Group, serving Ocala and The Villages in Central Florida.²

It is worth distinguishing between the three terms that often get conflated in DSO reporting. A partner practice group (such as Fort Bend Dental) can itself operate multiple offices or locations; Fort Bend alone accounts for five of them. So while Innovate 32's roster of partner groups is in the neighborhood of ten, its physical office count is meaningfully higher.

One nuance for investors: Innovate 32 consistently describes its strategy as building "throughout the South and Mid-Atlantic," but its documented footprint to date sits in Tennessee, Texas, and Florida.² The Mid-Atlantic reference is best read as a statement of intended expansion rather than current presence — a distinction worth holding onto when modeling the platform's geographic reach.

Growth History

Innovate 32's first two years follow a recognizable lower-middle-market pattern: establish a credible founding practice, then layer on partnerships at a steady cadence.

• July 2024 — Platform launch. Shore Capital announces the founding of Innovate 32 via its partnership with Dr. Clint Newman's Nashville group, establishing the platform and its initial Tennessee base.¹
• Late 2024 — Florida entry. The partnership with Marion Dental Group (Ocala and The Villages) extends the platform into Central Florida, giving it an early second-state footprint.²
• Early 2025 — Tennessee density. A partnership with Bivens Dentistry in Mt. Juliet deepens the company's Middle Tennessee presence.³
• Mid-2025 — Texas entry. The five-office Fort Bend Dental partnership marks the platform's largest single addition and its expansion into the Houston market.²
• Early-to-mid 2026 — East and Middle Tennessee. Partnerships with practices in Knoxville and the Maryville area (Crestview Dental and Cedar Street Family Dentistry), followed by a reported partnership with a Middle Tennessee network spanning roughly five practices and eight doctors, reinforce the company's Tennessee core.³

Growth to date has been acquisition- and partnership-driven rather than built on ground-up (de novo) office development — a contrast with de novo-oriented platforms such as DECA Dental Group.⁴ That distinction matters for diligence: a partnership-led model inherits established patient bases and cash flow on day one, but its pace depends on a steady supply of willing sellers and successful integration, rather than on a repeatable construction template.

Competitive Landscape

Innovate 32 operates in one of the most crowded DSO recruiting markets in the country. Nashville has become a recognized hub for dental consolidation, and several platforms — both local and national — are competing for the same independent practices.⁴

• Regional Nashville platforms such as Marquee Dental Partners, which industry coverage describes as having dozens of affiliated practices, compete directly for Tennessee clinicians and lean more heavily on de novo development.⁴
• National platforms including Heartland Dental, MB2 Dental, and Aspen Dental maintain a presence in or around Tennessee and bring far greater scale, brand recognition, and capital depth.⁴
• Other regional entrants continue to expand across the Southeast, intensifying competition for both acquisitions and clinical talent.⁴

Innovate 32's differentiation rests on selectivity and clinician alignment: a curated network of established practices, an emphasis on doctor-led decision-making and clinical autonomy, and a partnership structure designed to keep founding dentists engaged on its board and advisory bodies.¹ Whether that positioning holds as the platform scales is one of the central questions for the next phase of its growth, since maintaining a high-touch partnership culture becomes harder with each acquisition.

Market Position

As a sub-two-year-old platform, Innovate 32 is best understood as an early-stage regional consolidator rather than an established market leader. Its competitive position is defined less by current scale and more by the credibility of its sponsor and the discipline of its expansion.

On the favorable side: Shore Capital brings a deep multi-site healthcare track record and substantial capital, the founding practice group is well-regarded in its home market, and the company has demonstrated it can transact across state lines within its first 24 months.¹ The Southeast and Texas markets it has targeted feature fragmented ownership and favorable demographics, the conditions that typically support dental roll-ups.

On the side of open questions: the platform's absolute footprint remains modest relative to national players, its asset base is early, and its stated Mid-Atlantic ambitions are not yet matched by documented operations there.² Integration quality, doctor retention, and the durability of its partnership-first culture will determine whether Innovate 32 becomes a durable regional platform or an acquisition target for a larger consolidator down the road.

For independent practice owners in Tennessee, Texas, and Florida, Innovate 32 represents a credible, clinician-oriented partnership option still early enough that founding partners can shape its direction. For investors, it is a clear example of the Shore Capital lower-middle-market healthcare model applied to a fragmented dental market — worth watching as a barometer for how quickly disciplined regional platforms can compound.

TMR Take: Innovate 32 is a textbook early-stage DSO — a credible private equity sponsor, a respected founding practice, and a steady cadence of partnerships across Tennessee, Texas, and Florida in under two years. For operators, the appeal is a clinician-led culture and the chance to influence a platform while it is still being built; the trade-off is the uncertainty that comes with any young, rapidly assembling network. For investors, the story is less about today's footprint — an estimated 15 to 20 offices is modest — and more about execution: whether Shore's multi-site playbook can convert a fragmented Southern market into durable scale without diluting the partnership model that is its current differentiator. The "South and Mid-Atlantic" ambition is real as a direction, but the documented footprint is squarely Southern for now. Track partnership cadence, doctor retention, and the first genuine Mid-Atlantic deal as the signals that matter.

Sources

1. Innovate 32 and Shore Capital Partners — company website and founding announcement.

2. Dental trade press — Group Dentistry Now and Dentistry Today.

3. Innovate 32 partnership and transaction announcements — Business Wire.

4. Tennessee DSO market coverage and industry directories.