Dentlink, virtual lab for dentists around the world

It's been just over two years since Innovaid Co. launched Dentlink but the South Korean startup has already pivoted from its earlier local market-centered strategy -- it's going global.

“We will build our brand as a virtual dental lab,” Innovaid founder and Chief Executive Officer Kook Jin Hyeok said in a recent interview with The Korea Economic Daily.

“(Dentlink’s) goal is to be like Invisalign,” he later added.

Invisalign is the brand name of clear aligners developed by US company Align Technology Inc., and it's become the Kleenex of clear teeth aligners, as the name is widely used by patients and even some dentists to describe clear aligner orthodontics in general.

Dentlink, launched in December 2021 in Korea, is an online portal from which dentists around the world can order restorations and aligners through dental technicians mostly located in Korea. It offers all-in-one customer services such as a communication tool run by AI-trained language translation service, payment, customs, quality control and delivery services.

Innovaid opened Dentlink after its founder Kook, a dentist himself, saw huge opportunities in the dental lab sector given the rapid digital transformation of global dentistry.

Despite the growing use of intraoral scanners, CAD/CAM software and milling and 3D printing technology, dental restoration ordering and communication processes between dentists and dental lab technicians remain largely analog, said Kook.

“My company wants to change the system of ordering and managing (dental) lab work between dentists and dental technicians amid the fast advance in digital dentistry," said Kook.

PIVOTING LOCAL SERVICE STRATEGY TO GO GLOBAL

Dentlink initially launched its service for Korean dentists but pivoted from this strategy in May 2022 due to the country’s mature dental lab market, which has good access to inexpensive but high-quality lab products, Kook said.

Korean dental technicians are renowned for their outstanding skills. Kook explains this is partly owing to Korea’s state-managed lab technician licensing system, which licenses only college graduates majoring in dental lab technology, unlike other countries such as the US.

According to Innovaid, the price of restorations in the US is also two to four times the cost in Korea, where government-set fees for dental and medical services are much lower.

Given the price gulf for such high-quality products, Dentlink seized the opportunity to link Korean lab technicians with foreign dentists.

In June 2022, Kook went to the US and visited about 20 dental clinics to demonstrate the quality and price disparities between US-made and Korean-made restorations with physical samples. Finally, the Innovaid founder managed to secure three US-based dentists as the first customers of Dentist’s offshore service.

“Case remake rates (of lab work) in the US range from 8% to 10%, meaning about 8-10% of patients must return to the dental clinics to fix their restorations, while the remake rate of Korean-made ones is between 1% and 2%,” said Kook, adding that Dentlink's remake rate is about 0.6%.

Through Dentlink, US dentists can access high-quality but cheaper dentures, crowns or aligners from Korea, while Korean lab technicians earn more, Kook said.

“We guarantee 20-30% higher fees for partner technicians than what they earn in Korea,” said Innovaid CEO. “Our business is a win-win for dentists and lab technicians.”

About two years after Dentlink’s venture into the US, it now services about 150 dentists across the US. Many joined through word-of-mouth recommendations, Kook said.

“We even get requests for Dentlink from dentists in Australia, Canada and the UK, although we have not marketed there at all.”

Dentlink currently works with 22 Korea-based dental labs as partners and plans to add more.

NEXT FUNDING ROUND PLANNED IN Q3

Innovaid plans a Series A funding round in the third quarter of this year and will use the proceeds to expand its presence in the US and advance into other parts of the world, especially Australia and the Middle East, Kook said.

He added that they plan to raise about 4 billion won ($2.9 million) during the upcoming Series A round, and are in negotiations with multiple investors for the upcoming funding.

In May 2022, Innovaid raised seed funding from SpringCamp, a Korea-based venture capitalist, and then raised an additional 1.5 billion won from multiple investors, including D.Camp, Translink Investment Corp. and Silicon Valley-based Big Basin Capital, in a pre-A Series round in March 2023. SpringCamp also rejoined the funding.

A month later, it received aid funding worth about 500 million won from TIPS.

Innovaid was also named one of 20 Korean startups selected this year by Asan Voyager, a program designed to assist Korean startups entering the U.S. market by providing acceleration, coaching, community learning and long-term residency support.

With the new proceeds expected to be raised later this year, Innovaid plans to build a CS team in the US, which also deals with local sales and aftersales services, by acquiring a local lab.

It also plans to invest in new lab equipment like milling and 3D printers to bolster the manufacturing capabilities of Korean technicians, save manufacturing costs per product and improve product quality.

Innovaid is also seeking to make inroads in the Middle East, where dental technology lags behind Korea’s.

“People in the region highly regard Korean dental technology,” said Kook.

GREAT GROWTH POTENTIAL

Kook sees vast opportunities in the digital dentistry market, which is set to grow rapidly.

According to MarketsandMarkets, the global dental laboratories market is expected to grow to $46.5 billion by 2027 from $35.0 billion in 2022, largely driven by the rise in the elderly population and increasing demand for cosmetic dental procedures amid the fast uptake of digital dentistry technology.

Kook said the adoption rate of digital dentistry technology such as intraoral scanners is especially high in the US, which is already a big market. 

Kook is confident that Dentlink can beat its direct global rivals US-based Dandy and Hong Kong-headquartered Modern with its higher quality but still reasonably-priced products.

Dentlink boasts a churn rate of less than 5%, according to its founder.

“The key to our success is sales capability, which we are striving to enhance,” said Kook. “I hope to secure more than 1,000 dental clinics from around the world as customers within two years.”

Write to Sookyung Seo at skseo@hankyung.com

Jennifer Nicholson-Breen edited this article.