  We present an holographic approach to strongly-coupled theories close to the
conformal to non-conformal transition, trying to understand the presence of
light scalars as recent lattice simulations seem to suggest. We find that the
dilaton is always the lightest resonance, although not parametrically lighter
than the others. We provide a simple analytic formula for the dilaton mass that
allows us to understand this behavior. The pattern of the meson mass spectrum,
as we get close to the conformal transition, is found to be quite similar to
that in lattice simulations. We provide further predictions from holography
that can be checked in the future.These five-dimensional models can also
implement new solutions to the hierarchy problem, having implications for
searches at the LHC and cosmology.
