Angel investors such as Lenskart founders Amit Chaudhary and Peyush Bansal, Mosaic Wellness’ Revant Bhate, CRED’s Miten Sampat and Haptik’s Aakrit Vaish also invested in Smiles.ai
Representative image.
Smiles.ai, an online platform for dental treatments, on January 24 said that it has raised $ 23 million in a Series A round, led by Alpha Wave Incubation (Falcon Edge Capital), along with existing backers Sequoia Capital India and Chiratae Ventures.
Angel investors such as Lenskart founders Amit Chaudhary and Peyush Bansal, Mosaic Wellness’ Revant Bhate, CRED’s Miten Sampat and Haptik’s Aakrit Vaish also invested in the startup.
Founded by Hitesh and Jatin Kakrani, one of Smiles.ai’s focus areas is Invisible Aligner treatments, which has emerged as the preferred technology over traditional braces.
“India’s dental care market has remained highly fragmented and without any significant technological disruption for decades. However, now with increasing awareness, increasing disposable incomes and rising millennial aspirations, the industry is going through a transition and we are leading this change in India by combining dental care operations and technology expertise,” said Hitesh Kakrani, Co-Founder, Smiles.ai.
The company said India’s dental care industry will be a $ 15 billion market by 2023, and is growing 20 percent year-on-year (YoY), although customers are largely acquired via offline channels and individual clinics account for most business in the sector.
“Given the massive opportunity in the dental care space in India and abroad, we were very impressed with Smiles.ai’s approach in establishing a comprehensive offline base of dentists and building an aligners business on top of that. Using technology as a key driver and differentiator, Smiles is poised to disrupt the market and establish itself as a market leader while maintaining its capital efficiency,” said Anirudh Singh, managing director, Alpha Wave Incubation.
