Of course not. Nobody is perfect. Who can be? If we’re being honest here: having teeth is great and all, but the maintenance is kind of a drag. It’s something we all have to do, though.

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Accordingly, oral care is a fairly big market – in the to range by 2020, depending on the data source – with proven business models and entrenched incumbents to match. It’s just the sort of market clever entrepreneurs can find interesting, even if only from a business perspective.

Oral Care Startups Chomp Down VC Capital

Before getting into how these companies make money, let’s take a look at some of the venture-backed oral care companies which have raised the most funding.

Let’s start with toothbrushes, specifically electric ones. Following the commercial success of electric toothbrushes produced by incumbent brands like Oral B and Sonicare, several upstart companies joined in the market.

The table below shows a selection of the most-funded venture-backed companies in the electric toothbrush market.

And here’s a selection of venture-backed companies making toothpaste, mouthwashes, floss, and other consumable goods.

There’s a reason why investors might find these businesses appealing: most of these companies position their brands as upmarket, premium alternatives to what the big incumbents produce.

An example is the coconut oil-coated, exotically-flavored floss produced by , which costs $8 for an attractively-packaged 32-yard spool (plus shipping, if your online order is less than $10). On a cost-per-yard basis, even the spendier incumbent floss brands are roughly half the cost of Cocofloss.

The other appealing factor is the recurring revenue generated by both time-tested and emerging business models.

Consumables, Subscriptions, And Services

A large portion of venture-backed oral health companies follow similar models to the razor and shaving industry.

Most consumer-facing startups in the oral care market are predictably focused on consumer goods and electronics of some sort, often with a subscription or other service component to their businesses. In other words, there are a bunch of startups making and marketing toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss, all shipped to your door at regular intervals.

There are roughly three categories of business model here:

• Fully-disposable products
• Up-front spend on the base device, with replaceable, disposable cartridges sold at high margin.
• High-cost base device, with low-cost consumable component parts.

Let’s get the last one out of the way first: there is no oral care equivalent to buying a safety or straight edge razor handle for a relatively large sum ($25 and up, usually) and then spending just a few cents per blade. Brush heads are priced more like multi-blade razor cartridges at a few dollars a pop.

Many electric toothbrush companies do follow the cartridge razor strategy: sell the handle for a low price, and make fat margins on cartridges and accessory consumable goods that need to be refilled regularly. , for example, currently sells its electric toothbrush for as little as $30 for the base model, and the company will send replacement brush heads every three months for $5. A competing company, , sells its base brush for $50 and ships brush heads for $6.

Just as incumbents figured out that there’s huge lifetime value to a loyal customer, startups are doing the same. This applies to both the high-end subscription toothbrushes as it does to more expendable goods like mouthwash and floss.

Beyond subscriptions, though, some oral care startups offer other tech-enabled services and perks. This includes the likes of , which started as an app-enabled Bluetooth toothbrush company and by using user-specific brushing data to offer lower dental insurance premiums to those with good brushing habits. It’s a similar model to auto insurance companies offering better rates for safer drivers, as measured by insurer-installed hardware.

The Future Smiles Brightly

As sensors grow smaller and cheaper, ever-smarter toothbrushes and oral care products will be available to the folks who are into that sort of thing. As a distribution channel, the internet enables niche products (like $8 dental floss) to find customers. And, if you ignore serious privacy concerns, all the “big data” generated by all these gadgets could be a major boon to health care providers and insurance companies.

It’s important to note that we’re just brushing along the surface of the oral care sector here. There’s surprisingly fierce , for example. And there’s no doubt plenty of companies that sell their wares directly to dentists, which we didn’t cover here.

So brush your damn teeth.

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