Backing Allisone: a global dentistry operating system
As we announced our investment in Allisone.ai last week, this is the latest addition of our articles series on our investment theses. We wanted to share with you the different elements that helped us build our conviction on this market, this company and this team specifically.
Although dentists are typically sceptical towards digital tools and automation, they have strong incentives to adopt a platform to increase a clinic’s productivity and help with patients’ trust.
The status quo is still fairly manual and inefficient with the dentistry industry being historically reluctant to adopt technology. If not prone to excel, pen & paper, most dentists are using legacy software, with 4 leading PMSs (Patient Management Systems) accounting for c.90% of the market. Although very powerful, these tools are usually less automation and UX/UI focussed.
Yet this seems to be changing. Automation is slowly nudging its head in the field of dental radiology. Much information can be gathered and computed to enhance treatment planning. As a result, the AI in healthcare market size is about to boom in the next 5 years going from $5bn market in 2020 to $45bn in 2026, growing 10x over the period (Market & Market).
Market feedback and discussions have revealed that the main selling point is the “marketing tool” for patients treatment. Indeed the “dentist-patient” relationship is plagued with misalignments and distrust. Diagnoses are perceived as expensive; some patients are concerned they are being “sold” and not treated. As a result, 95% of patients feel that they are better taken care of when their dentist is equipped with digital tools, 74% of them say that they had a positive experience at the dentist when they explain the problem and the cure, 65% of them do not renew their visit to a specific dentist or ask for a second expertise because of a lack of trust and understanding. On top of that, 89% of dentists are afraid of being sued, and 64% said that fear prompts them to refer their patients more often. Conversely, improved visualization can support effective communication by dentists who must explain their diagnoses and receive patient consent for the recommended treatment plan. It is bringing more transparency to the equation; and eventually to better treatment planning and adherence.
Another powerful selling point is the digital workflow. Most of the dental files are still analogue. And this involves a lots of manual work for practices which leads to errors and inconsistency. Better workflow integration with automation of admin tasks & faster data entry can lead to huge gains in productivity. This is key as there is increasing pressure on dentists’ practice profitability. While reimbursement rates have risen, they haven’t kept pace with costs; to compensate, dentists have to work faster and see more patients in a day — about 20 every day.
Moreover, in the industry, there is no digital framework of communication across the value chain (i.e. between dentists, dental implant manufacturers, insurers, etc.), whereas “specialty” referrals are fairly standard. Indeed, oral surgery, orthodontics, and periodontal treatments are likely to be early areas where AI analysis on radiographs may help Dental Support Organisations and affiliated dentists track the potential for referrals. Market feedback has revealed that having radios easily accessible on the Cloud would be a game changer for most practitioners. It has also been highlighted that one of the key selling elements is the improved Days Sales Outstanding: by being plugged to the insurers, they can collect payments 30 days faster apparently, improving practice economics significantly.
Allisone’s vision to build an Operating System for dental care will gradually build their network effects across the entire supply chain.
Coming back to what we love most at Samaipata, Allisone will quickly become a highly defensible business by rolling out their “platform” network effect. They can build a strong moat by bringing together all dental stakeholders onto the same platform (i.e. dentists clinics, devices manufacturers, and insurers). Moreover, they could also benefit from data network effects in the long run (i.e. the improvement of their algorithm precision directly derived from their proprietary dental datasets).
Building a “market network” is thus the key product vision: they will essentially lock users into a 360 value proposition, entering via the diagnostic up to the practice and inventory management, the patients reimbursement and claim management.
The founding team brings together years of experience in dentistry, dental care operations, software development and medical SaaS business development, which will fuel their stellar ambition to build a global player.
The founder market-fit of the team is very high on this topic: Lionel, Allisone’s CEO and cofounder is a trained dentist and a former practitioner with over 6 years of experience in the field. He also used to run a dental clinic group, where he recruited hundreds of dentists. He has a strong insider knowledge of the industry, having experienced the pains first hand; as a result, he is very customer-centric. Sacha, Allisone CTO and cofounder, is an experienced Machine Learning Engineer who has deep experience in building complex software and managing tech teams at the best level. Cedric, cofounder and VP Sales is one of the first employees and former executive at Doctolib.
This is consistent with the very strong ambition of the entire founding team. They genuinely want to become the “standard of communication” across the entire dental value chain, by becoming a global leader. International expansion is already happening; they already have clients in the UK, Germany and Spain and they are on their way to support 3,000 dentists and build an 80-people team by the end of the year. They are recruiting across the board: if you are interested, check it out here.
