Recently, Chamlion, which focuses on the digitalization of the full process of dentistry, announced that it has completed the B round fundraising of 236 million yuan. This round of fundraising was led by 3H Health, followed by Vertex Ventures China, existing shareholder Zhencheng Capital, and Taihe Capital served as the financial advisor. The fundraising will be mainly used for the further expansion of the company’s domestic and overseas business, including the in-depth promotion and upgrade of their existing product line, to consolidate the company’s leading position in the field of dental digitalization.
Prior to this, Chamlion has successively secured tens of millions of yuan in the A round fundraising invested by Shandong Yinling Industry Investment Co., Ltd. and the 140 million yuan in the A+ round fundraising exclusively invested by Zhencheng Capital. In addition to the B round fundraising, the company’s cumulative fundraising exceeds 400 million yuan.
Chamlion focuses on realizing the digitalization of the entire process of dentistry with a new generation of technology, and provides one-stop dental 3D printing digital solutions. In May 2021, the company completed rebranding from “Chamlion Laser” to “Chamlion Technology”, and at the same time started an in-depth business model transformation, changing from a traditional 3D printing equipment supplier to a cloud printing service model. Chamlion applies the hardware as a service (HaaS) model in the field of dental 3D printing, intelligently connects 3D printers to the Internet, and builds a large-scale distributed dental manufacturing cloud factory, connecting the data-design-manufacturing process of dental processing, and building a digital service platform for the full process of dentistry.
Technology drives the continuing upgrade of the digital workflow
Benefiting from its solid R&D capability, Chamlion empowers the entire chain of dental processing with superior technology to achieve digital upgrades. Chamlion has developed DLP resin 3D printers to replace traditional manual plaster models; Chamlion applied metal 3D printers to replace manual casting processes; Chamlion has developed heat treatment furnaces, polishing machines and other post-processing equipment to greatly shorten post-processing time and fully cover the entire process of dental production and processing. At present, the installed capacity of Chamlion’s metal 3D printers has exceeded 1,000, leading the dental 3D metal printing market.
Through constant customer feedback, Chamlion recognizes the need to develop intelligent software solutions to meet the needs of highly developed 3D workflows and the ever-sophisticated hardware in the market place. Chamlion has successively developed 3D printing control software, 3D printing data processing software, and AI intelligent design software for dental production. Among them, the dental AI intelligent design software, based on artificial intelligence and big data, adopting graphic recognition algorithms and greatly improving the design efficiency through automatic matching. What is more, based on the shortage of skilled dental design and data processing workers in the industry, Chamlion has established a design team and data processing team of hundreds of people, built a global data center, and provided dental crowns and bridges for B-end dental lab clients around the world, offering digital design services for dental products such as crowns, partial frameworks, invisible orthodontics, etc.
In addition to software and hardware, materials are another core element that restricts the digitization of dental processing. Chamlion is making rapid and deep progress in the field of advanced materials in dentistry, gradually laying out the upstream raw material market, independently researching and developing metal powder, photopolymer resin, polishing salt and other materials, and promoting the construction of Chamlion’s entire industrial chain eco-system.
Using cloud service platform to create a new eco-system of digital dentistry
At present, 3D printing technologies applied in dentistry mainly include 2 categories. Metal 3D printing is mainly used to manufacture metal crowns, partial frameworks etc., and DLP resin printers are mainly used to make dental models, temporary crowns, implant guides, invisible orthodontic models, etc. According to the TMR report, by the end of 2025, the global dental 3D printing market will reach 3.441 billion USD, an increase of 16.5%. Obviously, 3D printing has brought opportunities for digitization of the industry. With the increasing maturity of 3D printing technology, the application of 3D printing technology in the entire dental field will be more in-depth and extensive, driving the digital, standardized and large-scale development of the dental industry.
Relying on the “Internet” + 3D printing, with Chamlion cloud service platform as the core, and in-house dental software, equipment, and materials as the cornerstone, Chamlion creates a new digital dentistry eco-system for dental processing. Rather than the digital upgrade of a single element, the cloud factory model can realize the continuous optimization and upgrade of software, hardware and materials in the eco-system, and also realize the coordinated development of the upstream and downstream industrial chains. Moreover, it can realize the integration of resources, the substantial improvement in efficiency, and the significant reduction of costs.
At present, digitalization has become the consensus of upstream and downstream enterprises in the dental industry, and 3D printing is the best technology to realize this. Chamlion cloud platform can provide inclusive dental 3D printing services. Users can choose digital design, data processing, 3D printing, post-processing and other services on demand without huge equipment and labor cost. Users just need to send task requirements through the Chamlion cloud platform, and the digital design team can carry out industrial CAD design and data processing online. The intelligent production scheduling system of the cloud platform will assign the printing tasks to the optimal cloud factory to complete the production of semi-finished or finished products. Finally, through a smart logistics system, the products can be quickly delivered to users. It is reported that Chamlion has entered 27 countries, and has established more than 260 cloud factories around the world, with a daily production of 80,000 dental crowns and 8,000 partial frameworks, providing services for 1,500 dental labs.
Based in China and with a global layout, Chamlion has successively established branches in Vietnam, the United States, France, Turkey, built sales networks and companies covering many countries and regions around the world, and established localized and digital manufacturing centers. It is estimated that by the end of 2023, the number of global cloud factories will exceed 300, providing dental products to 30 million users around the world.
With the digital service platform as the core, Chamlion is driven by technology R&D and distributed manufacturing cloud factories. With horizontal expansion, Chamlion continues to upscale its superior products and services. Starting from removable partial dentures, it expands into resin teeth, zirconia blocks, invisible orthodontics and other new dental products. It also vertically extends the upstream and downstream industrial chains, continues to use technology to drive the upgrade of the entire industrial chain, enhancing the overall competitive advantage, and striving to build a new digital dental eco-system and leads the new digital wave of the industry.
3H Health Investment said: The dental industry is facing opportunistic transformation, and the global dental supply chain is developing in the direction of digitalization, intelligence and intensification. Digging deep into vertical scenarios and providing complete software and hardware solutions is the cornerstone of dental supply chain integration. Chamlion focuses on dental processing scenarios and is committed to providing digital and intelligent overall solutions for the dental industry. It adopts the cloud factory model to empower the global dental processing market and improve the overall level of the industry.
3H Health is very pleased to have the opportunity to become the lead investor of this round fundraising, and firmly supports Chamlion to deeply participate in the structural opportunity of the integration of the global dental supply chain with innovative solutions of “Intelligent Manufacturing in China“. With the efforts of the company’s professional team, we are optimistic that Chamlion will become a leader in supply chain integration and digital processing in the global dental industry, and 3H Health looks forward to creating a new chapter in the future dental industry with Chamlion.
Zhijin Xia, managing partner of Vertex Ventures China, said that with the self-developed 3D printing and digital design technology, as well as the rapidly expanding business model, Chamlion will be able to greatly improve the efficiency of the dental processing industry and contribute to the oral health of Chinese people. With the simultaneous expansion of the company both at home and abroad, we believe that Chamlion will become a great enterprise leading the transformation of the industry.
Jianwei Li, founding partner of Zhencheng Capital, said: Since the beginning of the A+ round of cooperation between Zhencheng Capital and Chamlion team, the management team has been firmly promoting 3D printing services and digital transformation of dentistry, and has achieved good results so far: The service income has increased by more than 10 times. Zhencheng’s domestic business is developing rapidly, and is also laying out the global market, and the competitive advantage is more obvious. We welcome the B-round investors 3H Health and Vertex Ventures China to join us. We believe that with the support of more high-quality investors, Chamlion will be able to go further in the direction of dental digitalization, 3D printing service and globalization.