Biele­feld — Buying dental equip­ment as easy as buying shoes! With its inde­pen­dent online plat­form, the Biele­­feld-based startup Zahn­­arzt-Helden not only brings sales to the Inter­net, but also funda­men­tally chan­ges the way large-scale dental equip­ment is acqui­red, used and tech­ni­cally serviced. The High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces this inno­va­tion toge­ther with the Tech­no­logy Fund OWL mana­ged by Enjoy­Ven­ture as well as seve­ral busi­ness angels within the scope of a seed invest­ment in the amount of millions.

Until now, dentists have only been able to purchase dental equip­ment through consul­tants at specia­list dealers — in a time-consum­ing and non-tran­s­­pa­­rent process. Thanks to Zahn­­arzt-Helden, dentists can now purchase large-scale dental equip­ment such as treat­ment units, X‑ray units and intra­oral scan­ners online and at fair prices via www.zahnarzt-helden.de. With the option of a long-term rental, the startup provi­des an alter­na­tive finan­cing method to the clas­sic purchase or leasing, which has long been common in other indus­tries. And not only for dental equip­ment, but also for tech­ni­cal service, which can be taken advan­tage of via a monthly subscription.

Among other things, Zahn­­arzt-Helden would like to use the seed invest­ment to set up an online plat­form on which, for the first time, all the infor­ma­tion requi­red for a device purchase is bund­led and presen­ted inde­pendently. In addi­tion, the exis­ting service tech­ni­cian network of over 80 part­ners to date is to be further expan­ded and conso­li­da­ted. “Not only are we chan­ging the way we use equip­ment, but we’re also putting an end to nasty finan­cial surpri­ses when it comes to tech­ni­cal service work. Our flat rate for tech­ni­cal support enables dentists to plan costs,” explains Philip Pieper, co-foun­­der & CEO of Zahnarzt-Helden.

Maurice Kügler, Invest­ment Mana­ger at HTGF: “Zahn­­arzt-Helden has the poten­tial to trans­form the dental equip­ment retail indus­try with its market approach. The company’s market success to date impres­si­vely confirms this.” Stefan Bölte, Invest­ment Mana­ger at Tech­no­lo­gie­fonds OWL, adds: “The trio of foun­ders convin­ced us imme­dia­tely. With the approach of Zahn­­arzt-Helden, an indus­try will be sustain­ably chan­ged and dentists will bene­fit from the new market transparency.”

The foun­da­tion for foun­ding the company was laid two years ago through the Foun­ders Academy and the acce­le­ra­tor program of the Foun­ders Foun­da­tion, Ostwestfalen’s startup cadre. To date, more than 3,000 dentists have alre­ady taken advan­tage of the Zahn­­arzt-Helden offer, show­ing the team led by foun­der trio Cars­ten Janetzky, Philip Pieper and Martin Wert­gen that they are on the right track with their restruc­tu­ring of the dental market.

About the dentist heroes GmbH
Zahn­­arzt-Helden GmbH, based in Biele­feld, was foun­ded in Decem­ber 2017 by Cars­ten Janetzky, Philip Pieper and Martin Wert­gen and curr­ently employs 20 people. The company’s goal is to make the dental market fairer and more trans­pa­rent for dentists. An inde­pen­dent online plat­form enables dentists to quickly and easily purchase costly large-scale equip­ment for their prac­tice. In this context, Zahn­­arzt-Helden is not only respon­si­ble for compre­hen­sive product advice and the purchase of dental equip­ment, but also offers perma­nent tech­ni­cal service at a monthly rate.

About HTGF
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start­ups with growth poten­tial. With a total volume of EUR 895.5 million distri­bu­ted across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has alre­ady supported more than 540 start­ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and startup experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the soft­ware, media and Inter­net sectors, as well as hard­ware, auto­ma­tion, health­care, chemi­cals and life scien­ces. More than EUR 2 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,400 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. The fund has also successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.

Inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Energy, KfW Capi­tal, the Fraun­ho­­fer-Gesel­l­­schaft and the busi­ness enter­pri­ses ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, Boeh­rin­ger Ingel­heim, B.Braun, Robert Bosch, BÜFA, CEWE, Deut­sche Post DHL, Dräger, Dril­lisch AG, EVONIK, EWE AG, FOND OF, Haniel, Hettich, Knauf, Körber, LANXESS, media + more venture Betei­li­gungs GmbH & Co. KG, PHOENIX CONTACT, Post­bank, QIAGEN, RWE Gene­ra­tion SE, SAP, Schufa, Schwarz Gruppe, STIHL, Thüga, Vector Infor­ma­tik, WACKER and Wilh. Werhahn KG.

About the Tech­no­logy Fund OWL
The Tech­no­logy Fund OWL focu­ses in parti­cu­lar on start­ups from the IT or IoT sectors as well as on inno­va­tive busi­ness models with high market and scaling poten­tial. The fund mana­ged by Enjoy­Ven­ture has been on the market since 2017 as an early-stage inves­tor with 5 invest­ments to date. Initia­ted by the share­hol­ders Spar­kasse Pader­­born-Detmold, NRW Bank, Phoe­nix Cont­act and Unity AG and supported by the fund manage­ment Enjoy­Ven­ture, the leading-edge clus­ter it’s OWL and the Tech­no­logy Trans­fer and Start-up Center of the Univer­sity of Pader­born (TecUP), the Tech­no­logy Fund OWL can invest up to 1.5 million euros in an investment.