A Tooth-Straightening Startup Runs Into Resistance
Illustration: Oscar Bolton Green for Bloomberg Businessweek
It’s been a busy two years for SmileDirectClub, the hard-charging startup that promises what many customers undoubtedly consider a win-win: plastic aligners to straighten teeth for a fraction of what they would pay to get treatment through a dentist. Even better, they don’t have to go to the dentist at all. The company became ubiquitous, its ads appearing in social media feeds and on TV, buses, and billboards. Since 2017 it’s opened 342 retail locations—“SmileShops”—across the U.S. and in Canada; that includes more than 94 kiosks in CVS pharmacies. And in the first half of 2019, the company sold close to 232,000 sets of aligners—nearly as many as in all of 2018.
On Aug. 16, the company quietly filed for an initial public offering, one that market-watchers say will sell $1 billion worth of shares when it closes this fall. Although not yet profitable, SmileDirect is valued at $3.2 billion. The company has proven so successful—conceptually, if not actually—that it’s led the way for several smaller competitors. Still, SmileDirect faces challenges from dentists who say the company puts patients at risk.