Dezy Nets Additional $6 Mn To Expand Its Dental Care Play

Dental care startup Dezy (erstwhile Smiles.ai) has raised an additional $6 Mn (around INR 50.3 Cr) funding from existing investors, Alpha Wave and Chiratae Ventures, with Peak XV’s Surge joining the cap table.

As per the company, the fresh fundraise is a part of its ongoing $8 -$10 Mn round. 

It plans to deploy the fresh proceeds to expand its clinic network to cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Founded by Hitesh Kakrani and Jatin Kakrani in 2019, Dezy offers dental care products and services to its customers with its proprietary technology platform and onboarded healthcare professionals. 

It also facilitates patients with services like online consultation, dental walk-ins and dentist at-home options. 

Currently, the startup has around 22 offline clinics in seven cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Indore, Chennai and Pune. 

In 2022, Dezy raised $23 Mn (INR 171 Cr)  in a Series A funding round led by Alpha Wave Incubation, along with participation from Peak XV Partners, Chiratae Ventures, MBX Capital and Wami Capital. 

This development comes at a time when India’s healthtech sector has seen some key investments lately.

For instance, Delhi NCR-based Redcliffe Labs recently raised $42 Mn in its Series C funding round led by the Danish Investment Fund for Developing Countries (IFU). 

Healthtech startup 4baseCare also secured $6 Mn in its Series A funding round led by Yali Capital for ramping up its product offerings focused on building genomics and digital health solutions. 

During the same month, Online healthcare service provider Visit Health secured more than INR 250 Cr to expand its business operations, including partnership with technology service provider for healthcare professionals TatvaCare.

On the contrary, as per Inc42’s report, healthtech startups raised a little over $7 Bn between 2014 and H1 2024 in 886 deals. 

The sector saw a steep jump during the pandemic when fundings surged 4.8X from $456 Mn in 2020 to $2.19 Bn in 2021. Post the pandemic boom, funding numbers dipped by 19% CAGR every year between 2022-H1 2024.

However, with the rise in recent investments, the healthtech space might see a reboot. For context, cumulative funding secured by healthtech startups jumped 2.8X to $460 Mn in the first half (H1) of 2024 from $120 Mn raised in H1 2023.