Going to a dentist can be scary. You have to keep your mouth wide open for a long time. Honestly, it feels like forever. Pain. Dental anxiety. Fear of bad breath. If you aren’t a child and still feel this way, you are not alone. Studies show that 1 in 6 adults are afraid to visit a dentist.
However, visiting dental clinics (at least annually) is essential to maintain good oral health. Neglecting oral health or poor oral health is associated with serious health issues, including heart attack and diabetes. According to WHO, oral diseases affect nearly 3.5 billion people worldwide.
Luckily for those who feel anxious visiting dentists, Pearlii, an Australian startup, has created the world’s first dental AI app. It provides free dental check ups in less than 5 mins using your smartphone camera. It has an eco-friendly range of oral care products. And donates 50% of its profits to the dental truck project.
This means you can get a dental check-up from the comfort of your home and help improve oral care in rural areas. Isn’t that great?
Let’s know more about this new-gen startup.
Pearlii App: AI-powered dental care
Pearlii app is a free dental health app powered by well-trained artificial intelligence (AI). The AI is trained to identify dental issues by examining thousands of dental images and associated dentist diagnoses. The startup has a team of expert dentists to continuously train and improve AI.
All you need to do is open the app and take 5 pictures of your teeth as instructed in the app. Pearlii’s AI analyses those images to identify if you have any dental problems. It can detect issues, including tooth decay, staining, gum readiness, calculus and white spots.
Based on the results, the app gives tailored suggestions, tips and tricks to improve your oral health. If it finds something that requires dentist attention, it suggests you visit your dentist. You can book an appointment with a local dentist via the app (Available only in Australia).
The app also has built-in challenges to help you track your oral care habits and celebrate achievements with your friends and family. This community vibe makes the app a friendly solution to oral care.
What’s more, the Pearlii app is registered as a Class I Medical Device with the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG). So, it isn’t just any app; It is a certified free dental checkup app.
If you’re worried about what happens to your dental health data and images, you don’t need to be. Pearlii takes all necessary precautions to secure your data on the cloud. It de-identifies all the images, encrypts them and stores them separately for extra safety.
That’s not all. Pearlii also offers a wide range of eco-friendly oral care products to improve your oral hygiene. Let’s check them out.
Pearlii’s eco-friendly oral care products
The startup has a range of premium, organic, eco-friendly oral-care products that improve your oral hygiene and are good for the environment.
Pearlii products include toothbrushes, toothpaste, flossing kits, teeth whitening kits, and more. These are made using biodegradable, recyclable and compostable materials to promote sustainability. For instance, the toothbrush and toothbrush kits are 100% plant-based, made from Moso Bamboo. And bristles are made of castor bean oil.
Surprisingly, the toothpaste tube is made from HDPE, a toxic-free and recyclable plastic. The floss picks are manufactured from corn-based polylactic acid (PLA).
You can compost the toothbrushes and floss picks at home, making them a better alternative to plastic oral care products.
This is not all. Pearlii donates 50% of its profits from these products to the Pearlii Foundation and its dental truck project.
The dental truck project
Pearlii Foundation is Pearlii’s charitable arm, working on bringing the dental trucks up on the roads. The dental truck project is an initiative to provide free dental surgeries for homeless, remote and First Nation communities. It aims to address the oral care needs of people with no access to quality dental care.
Each dental truck costs around $350K, and the startup plans to bring the first truck on the road by the end of this year [2023]. The trucks will be staffed by some amazing dentists who have volunteered to give back to the communities.
By donating 50% of its profits to the project, Pearlii is fundraising to provide essential “on-the-ground dental care, to make a real difference, to real people.”
More about Pearlii
Pearlii was founded by Australian epidemiologist Dr Kyle Turner in 2019 to improve oral health around the globe.
Turner grew up in a poor household with no access to dental care. As a teenager, he was ashamed of his teeth and never wanted to smile. Frustrated by his crooked teeth and poor public dental health systems, Turner made it his life mission to improve dental health access worldwide.
His hunger and drive to transform dental care led to the foundation of Pearlii.
The startup has raised A$3 million so far from renowned investors, including Rogen Alley, Paul Docherty, Justin Liberman and BRC capital.
