Exclusive: Proclaim fills $15M Series B for home teeth cleaning

Home teeth cleaning device maker Proclaim filled a $15 million Series B, CEO Heberto Calves tells Axios exclusively.

Why it matters: The COVID-inspired home care push hasn't just been limited to traditional health care — it's now taking a bite out of traditional dentistry.

Deal details: Khosla Ventures, Global Asset Capital, Ensemble Innovation Ventures, SpringRock Ventures and Revere Capital participated in the round.

• Individual backers, including former Fitbit chief business officer Woody Scal, and Intuitive Surgical and Auris Health founder, Frederic Moll, also joined.
• Funds will go toward commercialization and launching.
• Calves says he plans to start raising a Series C starting in the spring, with the aim of closing the round in the summer of 2024.

How it works: Proclaim's device is a personalized, 3D-printed mouthpiece outfitted with 60 water jets designed to clean between the teeth and along the gums.

• The device, which is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a Class I medical device, costs $899 and is launching temporarily with a sticker price of $799.
• Calves says the company plans to sell directly to consumers with social media marketing and advertising in dental practices.
• A Proclaim-funded, 30-day study of roughly 200 people found when paired with daily brushing, the device helped significantly reduce gum bleeding, gum inflammation and plaque buildup compared with daily brushing and string flossing alone.

What they’re saying: "We believe this is a new category and a paradigm shift in preventive health, starting in oral health," says Calves.

The intrigue: Like other health care providers, dentists are known to be slow movers when it comes to adapting to new entrants — so Proclaim's aim of selling through the dentistry channel may take a significant amount of educational foundation-setting.

State of play: The home oral health market is a mixed bag, with private companies attracting recent market attention and others — such as teeth alignment device developer SmileDirectClub — seeing their stock plummet.

• With its stock trading at less than $1 a share, SmileDirectClub (Nasdaq: SDC) in May faced its second Nasdaq warning of potential delisting.
• Bristle, a startup developing the first home saliva test for oral health, last July raised $3 million in seed funding.
• Dental software company Planet DDS in January acquired dental practice management system provider Cloud 9 Software from Accel-KKR.