February 12, 2026

Everything You Need to Know About DSOs with Samantha Strain & Brendan Messenheimer

We’re so excited to welcome HealthStream co-founder Samantha Strain to the show to talk about everything you ever wanted to know about DSOs!👏👏👏 Sam Strain is Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer of HealthStream, a dental-focused boutique investment banking advisory firm serving the long-underserved lower middle market. HealthStream advises clients ranging from enterprising single-practice dentists to multi-state DSOs and MSOs backed by private equity, delivering transaction and growth advisory historically reserved for institutional operators. Sam partners with founders and leadership teams to drive growth, execute transactions, and build durable enterprise value. Sam is also Co-Founder of DoubleMint Ventures, a strategic go-to-market advisory working with category-defining oral health and healthcare technology companies, including vVardis, Anatomy Financial, UptimeHealth, Overjet, Sleep Architects, DentoAi and TwoFront, supporting innovation from early commercialization through scale. She also co-founded Cara Capital, a venture fund of funds that expands access to institutional-quality investments through its partnership with 4100dx. Seriously, what can’t she do?! ✨Connect with Samantha: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthastrain/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xsamstrain Curve Dental Website: https://www.curvedental.com/ Thank you so much to Curve Dental for making this episode possible🤩 📺Make sure you subscribe to our channel to catch our live dental education discussions every Wednesday at 8:00 EST! https://www.youtube.com/@dentistsintheknow Follow along with the DINKs: https://linktr.ee/dentistsintheknow 0:00 Intro 8:15 Dental News 17:00 Guest Intro 35:00 Recapitalization 37:00 Assisting Dental Technology Startups 46:00 Technology Practice Management Software 48:00 Acronyms 49:30 DSO investment in Dental Education