76M adult Americans do not have dental coverage. For those lacking coverage, a simple visit can turn into something debilitating when critical dental care is needed, driving individuals to accumulate medical debt. Flossy is a pay-as-you-go dental network that provides patients with affordable access to dentists. Patients receive upfront, transparent pricing for services provided by highly-rated dentists and savings can be up to 50%. Appointments can be booked in minutes and flexible financing options are available. For dentists, payments are issued in 15 days, improving cash flow for practices versus waiting months on end for dental insurance payments. Flossy is now live and providing services in Arizona, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania with plans to expand to new markets.
LA TechWatch caught up with Flossy Cofounder Miles Beckett to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $17.8M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
TTV Capital led our $14.7M Series A with participation from current investors Slow Ventures, 8VC, and Clocktower Technology Ventures. Other investors include SV Angel and the founders of Carbon Health, Flatiron Health, Modern Animal, FabFitFun, GOAT, Tradesy, and others.
Tell us about your product or service.
Flossy is bringing high-quality, affordable dental care to everyone. We are changing the way people pay for dental care by helping connect everyone to a high-quality dentist at an affordable price, with no upfront costs.
What inspired the start of Flossy?
My cofounder Steve Seigel and I both worked in healthcare technology for many years and saw that the dental category was very underserved. Health insurance doesn’t cover dental and Medicare doesn’t cover dental, people are either paying out of pocket or they’re paying for dental insurance that doesn’t cover much and is very expensive. We found out that over $140B is spent in the US annually on dental care, yet more than ⅓ of the country has no coverage. And more than 70% of seniors have no coverage at all! We knew there had to be a better way for people to get and pay for high-quality dental care.
How is it different?
Flossy is the first pay-as-you-go discount dental solution that connects patients to a highly rated dentist at an affordable price, with discounts of up to 50%.
First, we offer a curated network of the best dentists in your area, only accepting the top 20% of dentists from our dental network partners.
We also deliver the very best patient experience with online booking, beautiful provider profiles, dentist reviews, transparent pricing, digital payments, and affordable financing. Given how close our relationships are with Flossy dentists, we are often able to get patients in the same day, next day, and in for weekend appointments, which is critically important when you have an emergency tooth issue.
Lastly, we offer patients heavily discounted pricing, up to 50% off normal rates through our network partnerships and direct deals with practices, at no upfront cost.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Due to many Americans avoiding dental appointments during the pandemic, 94% of adults plan to visit the dentist in 2022. As I mentioned before, 76 million of these adults are uninsured, so without an option like Flossy, they are forced to pay entirely out of pocket for critical dental care, which can turn into thousands of dollars a year. Most people can’t afford a last-minute, emergency cost like that, so we are providing a better way for patients to get the care they need.
What’s your business model?
After their visit, patients pay their dentist through the Flossy platform and also pay a small service charge to us.
What are your post-COVID office plans?
We have always been a completely remote company.
What was the funding process like?
We have an amazing lead investor in TTV Capital and our other investors, many of whom are repeats, have been very supportive throughout our whole journey. They saw the lack of innovation in the dental category and saw how many people badly need high-quality, affordable care. We feel fortunate to have found such incredible investors who believe so strongly in our vision.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
It’s obviously a challenging environment for raising capital right now, but fortunately, we’d gotten to know TTV Capital over the past year and they were excited about the business and our mission. They saw the big opportunity in the market and how we are solving a need and were excited to back us.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Flossy is solving a huge pain point in a very large market and ultimately that is what was exciting to both TTV and our existing investors.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
With this new capital, we plan to very soon launch Flossy across the midwest and northeast, with the plan ultimately to go nationwide. We hope to be in LA by next year!
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
As a serial founder, I’ve seen both market ups and downs and navigated the 2008 recession with my first business. In an environment like this, it’s important to focus on increasing revenue, decreasing costs, and focusing on both unit economics and cash flow.
As a serial founder, I’ve seen both market ups and downs and navigated the 2008 recession with my first business. In an environment like this, it’s important to focus on increasing revenue, decreasing costs, and focusing on both unit economics and cash flow.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We are very focused on building our high-quality provider network and expanding Flossy into new markets. We’ve recently started offering a variety of financing options to patients and we’re looking forward to expanding that as well.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
I love food and the LA restaurant scene has been so great over the last decade, so it’s very hard to shorten the list. I love Felix in Venice, I’m a big fan of tacos so Guisados is always at the top of my list, and I can’t be a good LA valley boy without loving sushi and my top spot is Takao in Brentwood.
