Creating Smiles: Neocis Bites Into $72M Series D To Advance Dental Tech

Neocis, which is developing robot-assisted dental implant surgery, secured $72 million in Series D funding.

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

Alon Mozes and Juan Salcedo co-founded the Miami-based company in 2012 after developing robotic surgery concepts at MAKO Surgical.

“We saw the experience related to robotic surgery and thought we could apply it to a better market,” CEO Mozes told Crunchbase News. “My father was an endodontist, and we thought that would be a good clinical fit for this type of technology.”

Neocis’ robotic-assisted surgical system, named “Yomi,” was cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for dental implant surgery in 2016 and has placed more than 2,700 dental implants to date. It provides navigational assistance for both the planning and the surgical phases of dental implantation surgery to create a minimally invasive surgical experience.

DFJ Growth led the financing that also included Vivo Capital, as well as existing investors Mithril Capital Management, Norwest Venture Partners, Section 32 and Fred Moll. This new cash infusion gives Neocis a total raise of $120 million since its inception. That includes a $30 million venture round in 2019, according to Crunchbase News.

“Unlike other areas of medicine, dentistry has not benefited from advances in robotics technology, leaving a huge opportunity for innovation,” Jocelyn Kinsey, partner at DFJ Growth, said in a written statement. “Neocis’ unique technology and vast experience in surgical robotics, gives the company a tremendous first-to-market advantage to address the needs of this large and growing category.”

The U.S. dental implant market alone was valued at around $1.1 billion by 2019, and was expected to increase to more than $1.5 billion by 2025, according to iData Research. As such, dental companies are attracting investors. Within the past few months, we’ve reported on several dental technology companies receiving funding:

OrthoFX–$13 million Series A for a new suite of clear dental aligner technologies;
Overjet–$7.85 million seed to bring data-driven care to dental practices;
Tend–$37 million Series B to improve dental services;
Grin–$4.3 million seed to launch its digital orthodontic platform; and
LightForce Orthodontics–$14 million Series B for its 3D-printed braces system.

Neocis intends to use the new funding to expand on the commercial side and grow the sales and marketing teams, as well as continue investing in research and development. In July, the company was approved to do full-arch dental implant surgery–replacing the entire arch of teeth. Mozes also sees opportunity beyond dental implants in oral surgery or even crowns.

Following the company’s FDA approval in 2016, it began growing, doubling its employees each year from the 10 it had at the time. Commercial growth also expanded, especially in the last 18 months. Revenue is also growing 50 percent to 80 percent year over year.

A key indicator of growth for the company is utilization of the systems. For example, one of Neocis’ dental customers converted his business to all Yomi procedures. In addition, the company plans to better utilize the patient information coming in to help dentists understand the procedure, make the workflow faster and easier, and provide better recommendations on cases.

“In 2016, we were selling only to oral surgeons, but now that is growing to the full spectrum of specialists and dentists because even general dentists are doing implants,” he added. “Yomi is a great platform that does multiple procedures, and the software potential is interesting.”

Yomi photo courtesy of Neocis
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias