Quip raises another $40 million for dental care products and services

NelsonG · November 27, 2018

Quip, the dental care startup that got its start selling electric toothbrushes directly to consumers, has raised $40 million. The money comes in the form of equity and debt financing, with about half of the funding coming in an equity deal lead by Sherpa Capital and the other half in debt financing from Triplepoint Capital.

“I think the mix of debt and equity is a great thing for us,” Quip CEO Simon Enever told TechCrunch. “It’s more attractive than ever to get alternative types of financing.”

Alternative types of financing, for example, enable founders to potentially avoid terms that are not founder-friendly, as well as raise additional funds that they were unable to secure from traditional investors.

This comes a couple of months after Quip partnered with Target to sell its products, and about six months after Quip raised $10 million from Silicon Valley Bank and acquired Afora, a New York-based startup that offers an alternative to traditional dental insurance.

“It’s been another big year of growth in general for us,” Enever said. “We recently passed a big milestone — our one-millionth brusher.”

With the new funding in hand, Quip has a lot of product and services launches ahead of it, Enever said. He wouldn’t get into details, but Enever said now that the company has executed on phase one — electric toothbrushes and toothpaste — it’s time to expand into additional offerings.

“We’re excited to start offering members more products and services, and in the new year, you’ll see a few new physical products that expand daily at-home care,” he said.

Again, details are limited, but one could envision products like floss, teeth whiteners, mouthwash and chewing gum. Given Quip’s relationships with dental providers, Enever says customers have also asked for cheaper dental visits.

“For patients, we want to help them with everything — that full-service oral hygiene routine,” Enever said. “On the flip side, for providers, the attraction to Quip is we’ve built this large digital platform full of eager patients. We started Quip because people were not invested in their oral health, or were only visiting the dentist when a tooth was falling out or in pain.”

This week, Quip is launching a practice program for dental service providers to offer a low-cost way to offer Quip’s products to their patients. Quip also plans to use the funding to expand its headcount and grow its subscriber base.