Smile Genius: Why we raised our seed round and what it means for dental support organisations

In this article, VIKAS NAG PRASANNA, co-founder and chief product officer at Smile Genius, shares his thoughts on its recent seed round and how the investment will help the industry, especially from the perspective of growing dental groups

Last year, Smile Genius raised $1m in seed funding.

While it marked an important milestone for us as a company, the decision to raise was driven by a much-deeper industry reality we kept encountering across Dental Support Organisations (DSOs).

Smile Genius is a workflow and collaboration platform built for dental clinics, labs, and dental groups and today it supports more than 1,200 clinics across 20-plus countries, helping teams manage lab orders, treatment plans, communication, and invoicing through a single shared system.

We didn’t raise because dentistry lacks software. We raised because dentistry lacks shared infrastructure.

The operational gap DSOs encounter as they scale

As DSOs grow through acquisition and regional expansion, lab operations tend to become one of the most-complex and least-visible areas of the business.

What begins as a manageable process often fragments quickly:

• Multiple clinics working with overlapping lab networks
• Orders placed through a mix of portals, emails, and informal channels
• Invoices arriving without a clear link back to clinical intent
• Finance teams forced to reconcile lab spend retrospectively rather than control it pro-actively

Over time, this fragmentation introduces operational risk. Visibility diminishes, accountability blurs, and decision-making becomes reactive rather than intentional.

From conversations with group operators, it became clear that lab spend itself isn’t the root problem.

The real issue is the absence of a system that connects clinical orders, lab fulfilment, and financial accountability into one continuous workflow.

Why we built Smile Genius

Smile Genius was created to act as a shared operating layer between clinics, labs, and dental groups.

What started as a clear aligner case management solution has evolved into a broader collaboration platform designed specifically for group dentistry.

The core idea is simple: every lab order should be traceable, accountable, and visible, without introducing friction for clinicians.

In practice, this means:

• Lab orders are placed digitally and tracked end to end
• Treatment plans, revisions, and communication remain attached to the case
• Invoices are matched directly to confirmed clinical orders
• Payment status is visible before it reaches month-end reconciliation or payroll

For DSOs, this turns lab spend from a reactive finance exercise into a controlled operational process.

What DSOs gain from a shared operating layer

When groups introduce structure at the workflow level, the impact compounds across the organisation:

• Real-time visibility into lab spend across clinics, regions, and suppliers
• Clear approval paths before invoices are released
• Confidence that every invoice maps back to a valid clinical order
• The ability to analyse patterns and identify consolidation or renegotiation opportunities

Crucially, this structure doesn’t slow clinics down.

Dentists continue to work within familiar clinical workflows, but with greater clarity around what is being ordered, billed, and paid — and when.

Transparency at this level builds trust across the organisation, aligning clinicians, operations, and finance around a shared source of truth.

Why we chose to raise capital when we did

The $1M seed round, backed by Haatch, Enterprise Ireland, and a group of experienced angel investors, was raised to invest in the foundations DSOs rely on as they scale.

The funding enabled us to:

• Deepen group-level controls and reporting within the platform
• Invest in scanner, lab system, and accounting integrations to reduce admin overhead
• Build alongside early DSO partners already operating at meaningful scale
• Prepare the platform for international group rollouts

This wasn’t about growth for growth’s sake. It was about building infrastructure properly — in a way that reflects how modern dental groups actually operate.

A market moving toward shared standards

As dentistry continues to consolidate, expectations are changing.

Collaboration, transparency, and accountability can no longer be afterthoughts managed through workarounds and manual processes. They require shared standards.

Our ambition with Smile Genius is straightforward: when a clinic places, tracks, or pays for lab work, there should be a clear, expected system supporting that process — one that works consistently across the entire group.

The seed round was an important milestone, but, more importantly, it reflected a growing recognition that fragmented workflows are no longer sustainable at scale.

For DSOs, moving toward shared operating infrastructure isn’t optional. It’s inevitable.