Pearl secures historic funding for AI-powered dentistry

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 5 August 2024

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LOS ANGELES, US: Pearl, a global leader in dental artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, recently announced that it has raised US$58 million (€53.4 million)^* in the second round of funding for scaling its operations, marking the largest investment ever made in dental AI. With this funding, the company plans to accelerate its mission to elevate patient care in dentistry in areas such as patient treatment planning, insurance claim approvals and dental education.

Pearl’s machine learning and computer vision tools solve the significant challenge of inconsistency in diagnostic accuracy in dentistry—which has a direct impact on the quality of patient care. The company’s AI serves as a real-time aid to help dentists interpret radiographs, deliver consistent, objective and accurate diagnoses and communicate findings to patients clearly.

The investment round was led by Left Lane Capital, and other participants were Smash Capital, Alpha Partners and existing investors Craft Ventures and Neotribe Ventures. The company plans to use the recent funding both to accelerate the ongoing development of computer vision capabilities—including detection and tracking of disease in 3D and other imaging modalities—and to introduce new AI tools to improve patient treatment planning, insurance claim approvals and dental education.

Ophir Tanz, founder and CEO of Pearl. (Image: Pearl)

“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,” said Ophir Tanz, founder and CEO of Pearl, in a 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,” he continued.

Investment preceded by considerable growth of Pearl

Since receiving the first clearance ever given by the US Food and Drug Administration for AI software, Pearl’s clinical AI has gained regulatory authorisations for chairside use in over 120 countries and recognition among TIME’s Best Inventions.

The recent investment follows a period of significant growth for Pearl. The company 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 six 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.

“We have spent the past year evaluating this market, and it is clear that Pearl stands above [its] peers at the forefront of dental innovation,” said Vinny Pujji, managing partner at Left Lane Capital.

He added: “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.”

More information on Pearl’s suite of AI solutions can be found at hellopearl.com.

Editorial note:

^* Calculated on the OANDA platform on 24 July 2024.