"Resai Intelligence" has completed a Series A financing of over 100 million yuan, accelerating the global layout of dental 3D printers. | 36Kr exclusive.

36Kr has learned that "Rayshape Intelligence" has recently completed a Series A round of financing of over 100 million yuan. The lead investor in this round is Xieli Investment, and several senior entrepreneurs in the dental industry have followed the investment. The raised funds will be mainly used for product research and development, capacity expansion, and global business layout.

Rayshape Intelligence was established in 2019 and focuses on developing and providing dental 3D printing solutions. The founder, Liu Zhen, graduated from the Robotics Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and has over 10 years of work experience in the 3D printing industry. He once worked for a large domestic 3D printing equipment manufacturer, leading the research and development and management of multiple core products, and has accumulated 71 patent applications and 14 invention authorizations.

In recent years, digitalization has become a consensus among upstream and downstream enterprises in the dental industry, and 3D printing is one of the effective paths to achieve the upgrading of the dental industry. It is experiencing a critical transition stage from an "optional choice" to a "necessary choice". Especially in recent years, with the rapid popularization and penetration of intraoral scanners, the industry has experienced a rapid explosion. According to SmarTech data, in 2021, the 3D printing dental market size reached 3.5 billion US dollars. It is estimated that by 2028, the global dental 3D printing market size will reach 9 billion US dollars.

"We happened to catch up with this trend. At the same time, because we are using a new technical path and algorithm, and adopting a direct sales model, the product cost performance and user experience have been greatly improved, directly hitting the pain points of the industry, and the market has suddenly opened up," Liu Zhen mentioned to 36Kr.

In recent years, for the development of industrial-grade products, the more common method in the industry is to adopt DLP 3D printing technology (Digital Light Processing technology). On this basis, Rayshape Intelligence also adopts a "new LCD 3D printing technology (Liquid Crystal Display surface exposure technology) path".

It is introduced that the LCD technology has significant cost-effectiveness advantages in both equipment price and maintenance cost, which is of great significance to small and medium-sized processing plants. It provides a lower entry threshold for 3D printing technology, and can quickly promote 3D printing technology to the industry leaders, and even cover the middle and tail. This technology was originally only used for 3D printers for small-scale production for mass consumers, with slow speed, relatively poor accuracy and stability. "Through more than a dozen technological innovations, we have made the LCD 3D printing technology achieve an accuracy of 20 microns and 24-hour continuous production, and the entire printing process has a low failure rate, a long product life, and can provide extremely high operational stability for industrial production," Liu Zhen said.

Currently, the two devices sold by Rayshape Intelligence are mainly the dental professional-level LCD 3D printer Edge E2 and the dental high-end DLP 3D printer. Among them, the printing area of Edge E2 can reach 192x120x190mm, the accuracy reaches 50μm, and the printing speed also achieves 85mm/hr.

In response to the needs of industry-leading customers, Rayshape Intelligence will also upgrade the Edge E2 series to the Max model to meet their needs for a wider printing area, continuous and stable production, and intelligent control. In the future, it will also launch an overall solution based on clinical applications for dental hospitals and clinic customers.

Liu Zhen revealed that the shipment volume of Rayshape Intelligence's LCD 3D printers has reached a leading level in the industry. The company has accumulated more than ten years of research and development experience in the dental industry. Compared with similar enterprises, it has an approximately "one and a half to two years of generation gap" in photocurable 3D printing technology and products, and has a certain first-mover advantage.

In addition, Liu Zhen believes that the competitiveness of 3D printing companies is not only reflected in hardware equipment. Therefore, Rayshape Intelligence has laid out a complete 3D printing full-process capability including 3D printing equipment, software, materials, post-processing technology, and application technology, so as to meet different application needs at multiple levels such as the precision, strength, and special material characteristics of parts, and provide a full-process solution for downstream dental customers.

In terms of software, Rayshape Intelligence is trying to carry out related research and development work in combination with AI to replace the manual operation of chairside technicians and realize intelligent operations. "We hope that the future dental 3D printing technology can no longer rely on manual pre-judgment, but automatically identify and generate solutions. This may correspond to a larger market space, but the existing technology cannot fully achieve this."

In terms of materials, Rayshape Intelligence has established a separate material research and development department and has developed more than 20 types of dental resin materials with resin materials as the core.

With product innovation, cost performance, and complete service capabilities, Rayshape Intelligence has achieved rapid market growth since the official launch of commercialization in 2023.

It is reported that currently, the total installed capacity of Rayshape Intelligence's dental 3D printers has reached several thousand units, and the resin consumption in 2024 will reach several hundred tons. In the past two years, Rayshape Intelligence has accumulated a large number of benchmark customer cases in multiple fields, including leading medical device customers such as Huawei, Mindray, United Imaging, and Yuwell; more than 1,000 denture processing factories including Kangtaijian, Jiahong, Dentium, and Dekeli, as well as hundreds of dental hospitals and clinics including West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Stomatological Hospital of Wuhan University, Arrail Dental, and Happy Dental.

The company expects to achieve breakeven in the second half of this year.

It is worth noting that in terms of commercialization, Rayshape Intelligence has adopted a strategy of simultaneous layout in the domestic and overseas markets. The company has currently successfully entered the overseas mature markets mainly in the "Belt and Road" countries and Europe, and has signed more than 100 agents in 60 overseas countries. "At present, the proportion of the domestic and overseas markets is about 7:3. In the future, we hope to gradually increase the share of the overseas market," Liu Zhen said.