Where ETA Is Heading (And Why We’re Betting on Discipline Over Speed)

Over the past 12 months, we’ve spent every week sourcing, underwriting, and engaging with owner-operators across the dental industry. We’ve reviewed over 50 off-market practices, signed NDAs with dozens, issued multiple LOIs, and walked away from more deals than we thought we would. And we’ve done all of this without yet announcing a close. In the ETA world, that’s often seen as a red flag. But in our view, it reflects something different: a shift in how acquisitions are being approached in 2025—and a necessary evolution in what ETA needs to become. Interest rates have remained elevated longer than many expected, and the cost of capital is no longer theoretical. We’ve seen how inflation, labor pressure, and supply chain issues have eroded margins at the practice level. Sellers feel this. Many of them are not running distressed businesses, but they are fatigued. They’re still anchored to 2021–2022 valuation ranges, yet most haven’t adjusted to the reality of tighter debt markets and higher working capital needs. Deals that might have looked good at 6.5× in a zero-interest-rate world now feel tight at 5.5×—not because the business got worse, but because the cost of operating it has shifted. That macro pressure has made ETA real. It’s no longer about financial engineering or templated LBOs. The searchers who will outperform over the next five years won’t be the fastest to close—they’ll be the ones who read the room correctly. Those who can balance seller psychology with operational capability, and who understand the nuances of buying real businesses at a time when macro, micro, and structural forces are colliding. In our case, that has meant going slow to build something resilient. We’ve passed on practices with clean financials because the story broke down in the org chart. We’ve walked away from high-margin sellers when we realized their payor mix didn’t reflect the region’s long-term demographic shifts. We’ve spent months refining our ops plan—centralized billing, recruiting strategy, compliance protocols—not in theory, but with actual DSO operators who’ve run multi-site systems. And we’ve developed a sourcing engine that isn’t just email blasts, but a growing network of brokers, sellers, and ecosystem insiders who send us deals because they know we do the work. This space doesn’t need more capital. It needs operators who can make sense of noise, understand when to hold back, and know what to do when they finally say yes. We’ll announce our first acquisition soon. But what we’ve built already—discipline, judgment, and a platform backed by real conviction—is what we’ll be relying on long after the close. If you’re seeing the same shifts—or thinking about where ETA needs to go from here—we’re always open to a real conversation. — Owais Aslam Paroya & Aslam Capital