The landmark investment in dental artificial intelligence enables company to further expand its dental AI solutions and improve oral health outcomes for patients.
Dental artificial intelligence (AI) company Pearl recently announced that it had raised $58 million in Series B funding to accelerate its mission to elevate patient care in dentistry. Founder and CEO Ophir Tanz followed up this big news with an email announcement this weekend that reads: “Backed by the largest-ever investment in dental AI, we are now equipped to harness that potential with greater speed and deliver its value more fully.”
Left Lane Capital led the round, with participation from Smash Capital, Alpha Partners, and existing investors, Craft Ventures and Neotribe Ventures, according to Pearl. This funding marks the largest investment ever in dental artificial intelligence.
Earlier this year, Pearl was granted a patent for its dental practice data analysis AI technology—a patent that covers the machine learning techniques used to analyze data associated with 1 or more dental practices to identify missed treatment opportunities, future treatment opportunities, or provider performance metrics. Prior to that, the company was issued a patent for its “Systems and Methods for Automated Medical Image Analysis,” which grants it the exclusive rights to the computer system technology supporting the application programming interface (API) of its chairside AI disease detection software, Second Opinion®.
“In the field of healthcare, dentistry has become an AI standard-bearer, demonstrating the technology’s enormous utility and benefit in day-to-day patient care––and Pearl has led the AI charge in dentistry,” Tanz, says in the press release. “This historic funding round underscores the impact of Pearl’s capabilities and supports our belief that high-quality, AI-powered dental care should be accessible to everyone. With this investment, Pearl will continue to push the envelope, providing pioneering machine learning to improve oral health outcomes and strengthen trust between the patient and dental professionals.”
With this investment, Pearl will look to continue to advance innovation in technologies that enhance the health of dental patients around the world by expanding its line of dental AI products, broadening its regulatory and patent portfolio, and increasing global access to the transformative benefits of AI in dentistry. At present, Pearl’s machine learning and computer vision tools are designed to solve a core challenge in dentistry: inconsistency in diagnostic accuracy, which directly impacts the quality of patient care. The company’s AI serves as a real-time aid to help dentists read patient x-rays, deliver consistent, objective, and accurate diagnoses, and clearly communicate findings to patients with precision, clarity, and confidence.
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Since receiving the first-ever FDA clearance for AI software to help dental professionals detect multiple different pathologies and other conditions in x-rays, Pearl’s clinical AI has gained regulatory authorizations for chairside use in over 120 countries and recognition among TIME’s Best Inventions, Pearl states. The company plans to use the funding both to accelerate ongoing development of computer vision capabilities – including detection and tracking of disease in 3D and other imaging modalities – and introduce new AI tools to improve patient treatment planning, insurance claim approvals and dental education.
"We have spent the past year evaluating this market and it is clear that Pearl stands above peers at the forefront of dental innovation," adds Vinny Pujji, managing partner at Left Lane Capital. "Pearl's pioneering dental Al improves diagnostic accuracy and efficiency while transforming the provider-patient relationship. We're confident in Pearl's ability to continue setting new standards of care and are thrilled to support their next phase of growth."
This investment follows a period of significant growth as Pearl reportedly grew its revenue by 458% in 2023 and remains the only dental AI company with a global market presence. Pearl’s technology is used in dental practices across 6 continents and is commercially available to over 500,000 dental practices and millions of dental professionals worldwide. The company has also integrated its AI into dozens of popular imaging and practice management systems and is the preferred radiologic AI provider for leading dental technology distributors.
The AI technology is designed to offer a seamless and less invasive approach to dental diagnostics. By accurately detecting disease and displaying clinical findings that are easy for patients to understand, the company’s FDA-cleared software enhances the efficiency, consistency, and precision of radiologic exams, while also facilitating patient education and engagement in their dental health, Pearl states. Leveraging its new funding, the company will enable dental professionals to continually raise the standard of care with more transparent, accurate and objective diagnoses, more effective individualized care, and deeper patient trust in dentistry.
For additional information on Pearl’s suite of solutions for dental practices, visit hellopearl.com.
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