Boston, MA – Yankee Dental Congress – January 29, 2015 — Convergent Dental Inc., a privately held dental device company, is proud to announce the significant milestones the company reached in 2014, the first year its flagship dental laser Solea was available to the market. Solea has quickly established itself as a critical tool in the dental operatory because it enables any dentist to virtually eliminate anesthesia and blood from operative dentistry. Solea’s success is largely attributed to its unique 9.3 micron wavelength and computer controls, both of which are firsts in laser dentistry.
Empowering dentists to perform virtually anesthesia-free and blood-free procedures is transforming practices with dramatic efficiency gains and entirely new patient experiences. With drills, dentists lose valuable time injecting patients and waiting for numbness, then they are limited to working in one quadrant of the mouth due to the risk of patient injury. Solea dentists report performing 95 percent of both hard and soft tissue procedures without anesthesia or bleeding, enabling them to start immediately, routinely execute multi-quadrant dentistry, fill cavities when they are discovered in hygiene and perform soft tissue procedures they would never have done without a laser. These time savings result in dentists performing six or more procedures per day and revenue gains of 25-40 percent.
Solea sales nearly quadrupled in Q4 2014 as the facts emerged regarding the increased productivity, significantly improved patient experience and practice growth experienced by Solea’s early users. Convergent Dental’s momentum has far exceeded market expectations as the business has risen to be the fastest growing hard and soft tissue laser company in the US in only its first year on the market.
$9 Million in Oversubscribed Funding Round
Convergent Dental secured $9 million in an oversubscribed funding round led by Long River Ventures along with individual investors. The funding fueled the company’s investments in product development, sales, marketing and client services to meet the growing demand for Solea.
Major Upgrades to Solea
Convergent Dental’s commitment to innovation has already yielded major upgrades to its flagship Solea dental laser. Solea Version 2 offers a completely redesigned handpiece, the ability to use office air for near soundless cutting, software upgrades that enable a fourfold increase in cutting speed, an adjustable aiming beam and more, all of which will be made available to new and existing customers. These features came in addition to the standard computer-optimized beam delivery system, variable speed foot pedal and intuitive touch screen that enables any dentist to become an expert after only one day of training.
In addition to the dental community, the media fell in love with Solea almost immediately and showered the dental laser with accolades. Convergent Dental took home the following accolades and honors in 2014:
“I am ecstatic about our performance in 2014. Solea far outperformed both ours and our customers’ expectations,” said Convergent Dental CEO Michael Cataldo. “We knew Solea would enable a better patient experience but even we were surprised at the dramatic effect that Solea has on productivity and profits. With the first year behind us, we can see that we have just scratched the surface of Solea’s potential and look forward more positive surprises in 2015.”
# # #
Convergent Dental, Inc., is a privately managed dental equipment and technology company and is the developer of Solea™, the world’s first computer-aided, CO2 laser system to ever be cleared by the FDA for both hard and soft tissue indications. Solea cuts significantly quieter, finer and faster than any other laser-based system in dentistry. Solea’s speed and precision is a result of patented technologies and computer system controls that are unique to Convergent Dental, Inc. For more information, follow the company on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.