Overjet: The AI startup reshaping Dentistry

(5 minute read)

• This AI startup is reshaping Dentistry forever using AI

• It was named one of the top 50 AI companies by Forbes in 2022

• They’ve raised $130.6M from investors like General Catalyst and MIT’s startup fund

So what’s the startup and who are the founders behind it? This is the story of Overjet 📈

Overjet was founded in 2018 by Wardah Inam, Alexander Jelicich and Deepak Ramaswamy to transform the dentistry industry using AI.

Overjet’s software analyzes millions of dental X-rays using computer vision. It’s then able to quantify these X-ray readings to help dentists make better diagnosis of their patients’ pathologies. 🤖

The tool is also used to communicate diagnostics with patients so that they’re more aware about their oral health and accept treatments recommended by dentists.

Patients are actually very excited about this tech and see the benefits of it - being able to make better decisions for their own oral health.

They’re used by some of the largest DSOs (Dental Support Organizations), and insurance firms, as well as thousands of dentists worldwide.

Backstory 🤔

Even before Overjet, Wardah had always been an overachiever 🌟, having graduated top of her class during her Bachelors at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. 

She then did a masters in electrical engineering and CS at MIT, where she secured a 5.0 GPA, and went to Harvard Business School.

Wardah was always driven by having an impact on the world and knew tech had a big role.

During her PhD at MIT, she worked at the CS and AI Lab, working on biomedical sensing using ML to look at things like breathing and heart rates.

🧬 She then joined a startup called Q Bio, which did biomedical imaging looking at data from things like MRI scans.

While working at the startup, Wardah had changed dentists and got a new treatment plan which she didn’t know much about. She then got really interested in dental diagnosis, and interested in dentistry.

Wardah tried learning everything about the industry from reading and watching any dentistry content she could find.

She was super impressed with how much a dentist needed to do each day. There were a ton of manual processes, so she thought about how tech could automate and evolve the job.

The beginnings of Overjet 👩‍🍼

Wardah then started shadowing dentists to learn about their specific processes. She then started Overjet in 2018 with co-founders Alexander and Deepak. 

Overjet’s software analyzes Dental X-rays, something that hadn’t been done before.

With Overjet, dentists could now provide a more comprehensive diagnosis of dental X-rays.

Dentists could also now communicate with the patient better - they were more informed about their oral health and could accept treatments recommended by their dentists.

Every practice that uses Overjet, whether it’s a dentist with a high churn rate or obsessive professors trying to perfect everything, can benefit from their treatment plans .

Overjet is founded on a patients first interest, so respond to customer feedback really well.

A lot of practices that use Overjet have even changed where they’ve placed their monitors, now putting them directly in front of the patient. 

This helps dentists communicate with patients better, and so that patients are involved in the diagnosis process.

The tool is even used by insurance firms to automate claim processing, saving time for both the firms and customers with dental care.

There is no one way to use Overjet, practices are constantly innovating in their own ways and finding unique ways for patients to use the tech.

Stats 📊

✨Wardah has been extremely influential, having been named Inc.’s Top 100 Female Founders in 2022 and part of the Tech Power Players 50 in 2023.

💸 To date, Overjet has raised $130.6M in total. Their last funding round was a $53.2M Series C at a $550M valuation from investors like MIT’s E14, General Catalyst, and March Capital.

📈Overjet has also been named among the Top 50 AI startups to watch by Forbes in 2022, and The Top 10 most innovative companies in healthcare 2023 by Fast Company.

Overjet partners with payers that cover 120M+ members, including the majority of the 10 biggest U.S. dental insurers.

They have a 180+ person team and plan to continue growing as more and more dental practices love this tech.

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