Smile AI

History

2024: Attracting 10 million rubles of investments

The University Venture Fund invested 10 million rubles in a telemedicine student startup. This was announced on July 17, 2024 by the Platform of the University Technical Representative.

Funds in the project SmileAI at the seed stage (preparation for growth) were invested by a business angel and the Voskhod venture fund through one of the tools of the fedproject "Platform of University Technological Entrepreneurship" - UVF Korolev.

The University Venture Fund (UVF) is one of the tools for supporting the technical representative, created in the form of an investment partnership. The funds provide university technology startups with the "smart capital" of late-stage professional investors who, in addition to money, invest their business competencies in the project.

In this case, the Voskhod venture fund and the business angel, a private venture investor ready to provide financial and expert support to the project, invested funds in the startup through the UVF.

Start-up SmileAI is a telemedicine application for remote primary diagnosis of dental and gum health. Its founder is Daniil Maklakov, a graduate of the Faculty of Biology of BelSU, a master's student at ITMO University.

The application diagnoses the condition of the patient's teeth and gums based on their appearance. At least three photos of the oral cavity must be uploaded to the development - SmileAI analyzes them using a neural network trained on 75 thousand images, identifies problems and makes personal recommendations for care and a therapeutic treatment plan. Diagnosis takes approximately 30 seconds.

The SmileAI app is available on the website and on VK. The startup is also developing an IT service to attract clients to dental clinics through a system of recommendations from clinics and doctors for app users. The startup team was a finalist for the SberStudent accelerator, where it attracted the attention of investors.

{{quote "Thanks to the tight work with the SberStudent personal tracker, our team was able to work out the project in detail and already have the first clients by the stage of the demo day: 40 dental clinics in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Belgorod are already cooperating with the application, as well as toothpaste manufacturers. Also during the accelerator, we managed to attract the attention of investors. The funds received will go to finalize the application, expand the neural network data set to 100 thousand images, conduct additional clinical studies, "said Daniil Maklakov, founder and CEO of SmileAI. }}

Investments in SmileAI are part of the fund's systematic work to support promising university projects of the early stages within the framework of the federal project of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The program allows you to remove investment barriers for seed projects and help them get on the trajectory of business growth. In fact, the task of bringing more stage A startups, traditionally the most attractive to investors, to the venture capital market is being solved. A good sign that the list of funnel sources for such projects is not limited to the walls of universities, but also includes accelerators of corporations such as Sberbank, which are interested in developing technological entrepreneurship in the country, "said Maria Gorbunova, investment manager of the Voskhod venture fund.

As of July 2024, the SmileAI team is working to integrate the solution with clinics, with some of which partnership agreements have been signed to lead the potential customer base from applications. Clinical studies are also being launched to confirm the effectiveness of screening using Smile AI apps, including by benchmarking with a face-to-face dental exam based on one of the leading medical universities.