What You Should Know:
– CareQuest Innovation Partners, a company dedicated to improving overall health through oral health, in partnership with MATTER, a premier healthcare incubator and innovation hub announced the eight emerging startups selected for the fourth annual SMILE Health program. This marks the largest cohort to date, reflecting a growing urgency to support innovation in oral health, particularly given recent concerns around fluoride policies and persistent underfunding in the sector.
– Selected from an impressive pool of applicants spanning 15 countries and 42 U.S. states, these startups align with SMILE Health’s core focus areas: advancing accessible, equitable, and integrated health; engaging people in their oral health; and connecting chronic care with oral health. The 2025 cohort includes Feno, Firstgrin, KiDDY CAPS, Social Cascade, Times Health, Toothapps, Willo, and Xploro.
Addressing Critical Gaps in Oral Health Care
The urgency of preventive oral health care has never been higher, especially for children and low-income families, with fluoride bans across multiple states raising concerns for providers and experts. This year’s cohort strongly reflects this need, with many companies concentrating on pediatric oral health care innovation and access.
Despite venture capital funding for oral health reaching over $400 million in 2024, it still represents a small fraction of overall healthcare investment. This underfunding is particularly concerning given that oral diseases affect 3.5 billion people globally each year, and annual dental care spending is projected to exceed $430 billion by 2030. The SMILE Health program aims to bridge this gap by connecting innovative startups with a growing network of partners and investors, accelerating solutions that enhance access, equity, and medical-dental integration, while reducing the societal and economic burdens of poor oral health.
“With federal policies for oral health care under threat, there’s an urgent need to support innovation that expands access and equity,” said Katie D’Amico, vice president of growth and innovation at CareQuest Innovation Partners. “Backing startups at the forefront of this work is one of the most effective ways to ensure communities get the care they need”.
Accelerator Program
The selected startups will participate in a four-month, semi-virtual accelerator program designed to validate their solutions. During this period, they will be matched with mission-aligned industry partners from a growing list that includes Apple Tree Dental, Cigna Healthcare, Colgate–Palmolive Company, Delta Dental of Massachusetts, Delta Dental of Washington, Dental Network of America, Glidewell, Heartland Dental, Henry Schein, PDS Health, and Sun Life Dental (including DentaQuest). Investor partners like 7wire Ventures, Aphelion Capital, Dental Innovation Alliance, Gilde Healthcare Partners, Revere Partners, Seae Ventures, SpringRock Ventures, and Waterline Ventures are also involved.
Each startup will receive a stipend, access to multidisciplinary healthcare experts, dedicated mentors, a curated curriculum, and key business insights. New this year, the cohort will also have access to CareQuest’s new Startup Data Hub, which offers self-service capabilities to help innovators validate and scale their solutions faster. Significantly, no equity is required from the startups to participate.
The SMILE Health program culminates with “Reveal Day” at MATTER headquarters on October 7–8, 2025, and at the global HLTH conference on October 19–22, 2025. These events will feature curated, one-on-one conversations between cohort members and industry leaders. Following the accelerator, startups will retain access to resources from both MATTER and CareQuest Innovation Partners and can apply for CareQuest Innovation Partners’ ACCELERATE program for incremental funding to further partner collaborations on industry-advancing projects.
Introducing the 2025 SMILE Health Cohort:
- Feno (Culver City, California): A connected oral health platform combining smart brushing technology with personalized insights to help people understand, track, and improve their oral health.
- Firstgrin (New York, New York): Provides pediatric oral care kits and evidence-based education via a companion app for families, aiming to prevent oral disease from pregnancy through infancy and establish healthy hygiene habits.
- KiDDY CAPS (Wilsdorf, Germany): Transforms pediatric dentistry by offering affordable, minimally invasive zirconia crowns for children, making high-quality caries treatment more accessible.
- Social Cascade (Raleigh, North Carolina): Enables providers to engage patients between office visits with timely, relevant information to promote equitable access through education and drive community health outcomes.
- Times Health (Knoxville, Tennessee): An AI-powered virtual health assistant providing 24/7 dental guidance, symptom support, and preventive care education for proactive oral health management.
- Toothapps (Wayzata, Minnesota): Focuses on advancing health data access, interoperability, and real-time patient engagement across the medical and dental care continuum. Its Cair solution helps patients access, understand, and act on their complete health history.
- Willo (New York, New York): Offers automatic toothbrushes designed for children and individuals who need extra support or a more effective, hassle-free way to maintain daily oral hygiene.
- Xploro (Cleveland, Ohio): A pediatric patient education platform using augmented reality, gamification, and interactive content to empower children as active participants in their health journey, reducing anxiety and improving outcomes.
