DIA, a venture capital fund focused on investing in the over $1 trillion multi-site healthcare industry with emphasis on dental solutions, announced a strategic investment in Waitly, Inc., the AI-native patient scheduling company that automatically identifies patients who should be in a chair but aren’t and books their appointments without staff involvement.

Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Waitly was built by three repeat healthcare technology founders. Co-Founder and CEO Paul Jaglowski previously founded Feedtrail, an experience management platform built for healthcare, which he led from founding through acquisition. Waitly is live today with multi-location groups ranging from 11 to nearly 200 locations across general dentistry, pediatric dental and orthodontics, and orthopedics/PT.

Waitly targets one of the most persistent economic problems in multi-site care: unused clinical capacity. Industry estimates place the share of scheduled production that gets canceled or rescheduled at 20 to 40 percent, while waitlists, hygiene backlogs, accepted-but-unscheduled treatment, and lapsed patients sit unworked inside the practice management system. Because labor, occupancy, and clinical infrastructure are largely fixed at the location level, most revenue from each incremental appointment falls through to margin. Most tools in the category are AI receptionists, chatbots, booking portals, and inbound call routing that wait for the patient to reach out first. Waitly runs the opposite motion.

The platform integrates bidirectionally with the practice management system and scans every provider’s calendar in real time for openings. It then scores the patient population on clinical urgency, provider preference, likelihood to show, and value, and offer seach opening to the best-fit patient one at a time through AI-driven SMS and voice conversations in the patient’s language. Implementation on an already-integrated practice management system takes roughly one week, with no logins, dashboards, or staff training required.

Early results have come quickly. A 45-location dental support organization (DSO) went live seven days after signing, with no IT project. Within ten weeks, running a single use case across seven clinics, the group recovered about $84,900 in production and saved an estimated837 staff hours. After expanding across the organization, the same DSO saw Waitly directly drive more than $320,000 in additional scheduled production in September alone, from unscheduled patients due for hygiene, crowns, and Invisalign treatment.

The investment reflects DIA’s strategy of backing companies where the firm’s dental-industry expertise can directly accelerate growth. DIA’s relationships across dental service organizations and its network of operators and board members align directly with Waitly’s target buyer, and the firm expects to provide industry validation, channel partner introductions, and support for the company’s DSO sales motion as Waitly continues expanding beyond dentistry into adjacent ambulatory specialties.

“Waitly is doing something structurally different from the rest of the category. It doesn’t answer the phone faster, it creates revenue that was never going to be captured,” said Doug Brown, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of DIA. “At a time when DSOs are facing real pricing pressure and the front desk is stretched thin, a solution that requires no new headcount, no new dashboard, and nothing for staff to learn is exactly what the DSO technology stack needs. Paul is a repeat founder who understands this industry, and we’re glad to be behind him and the team.”

“The demand is already sitting in the practice management system. Nobody has ever had the time to work it,” said Paul Jaglowski, Co-Founder and CEO of Waitly.“AI finally makes it possible, but only if it’s built around how each group actually runs. We work side-by-side with every client’s operators to get that right, and we hold ourselves to one standard: real production, measured booking by booking. DIA’s relationships with DSO leaders make them the right partner to help us earn that trust across the industry.”

About DIA

Dental Innovation Alliance (DIA) isa venture capital fund investing in innovative technologies within the over $1 trillion multi-site healthcare industry, with a special focus on dental solutions. The firm provides strategic capital and industry expertise to companies developing solutions for dental practices, DSOs, and the broader multi-site healthcare ecosystem. Learn more at dialliance.com.

AboutWaitly

Waitly, Inc. is an AI-native patient scheduling company that integrates directly with practice management and EHR systems. Waitly finds the patients who should be in a chair but aren’t, from waitlists, cancellations, hygiene recare, unscheduled treatment, and lapsed care, and books them autonomously over AI voice and SMS. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Waitly is led by Co-Founder and CEO Paul Jaglowski. Learn more at waitly.ai.

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