Want to have your teeth pulled out at home? This startup just got funded to do that

Photo credit: MobiDent.

An arthritic elderly woman has a decaying tooth which not only causes a toothache from time to time but could also lead to inflammation that worsens her arthritic pain. But she keeps putting off a visit to the dentist.

You know you need periodic deep cleaning of your teeth to remove plaque and tartar. Otherwise it can lead to tooth decay, gum disease, and worse. Oral bacteria have been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and dementia. And yet, something always crops up to put off that dentist visit.

These are familiar scenarios. Now a dentist and an entrepreneur in India have got together to solve this problem. They have developed a portable dental kit – complete with a foldable, lightweight dentist’s chair – which a dentist can pack into a car for a home visit. They call it a “dental clinic in a suitcase.”

They call it a dental clinic in a suitcase.

Their startup MobiDent today announced a pre-series A funding round of an undisclosed amount from New York-based DanGold Investment Corp.

One of the founders is a dental surgeon with 25 years in private practice in Bangalore – Devaiah Mapangada. His co-founder and CEO is Vivek Madappa, who is a serial entrepreneur with three startups under his belt. Apart from MobiDent, another company he is currently running is Humming Bird, which provides business travel services to large corporations.

See: How a medical device maker got $5 million seed funding

Dental bus to dentist’s chair in a box

Photo credit: Mobident.

Dr. Devaiah – as he is known – opened a clinic on Brigade Road in the heart of Bangalore in 1991. He tells Tech in Asia that even back then, he used to make home visits for simple dental procedures in the Richmond Town residential area which had a high number of senior citizens.

Then, at the turn of the millennium, he took a two-year course in specialized geriatric care in Switzerland. At the end of it, his professor at the University of Zurich urged him to adapt what he had learned to India.

These ideas remained dormant – except for occasional entries in his diary – until 2007, when a patient took four hours to reach his clinic. Traffic jams had become an everyday affair in Bangalore.

It got Dr. Devaiah thinking seriously about taking dental care to people in their homes and offices. He conducted surveys which found clear evidence of the need for it – among the elderly as well as busy techies and parents with young kids.

Accessible and affordable