Two world-renowned dentists, a robot that prepares teeth for veneers, €30 million raised without professional investors before this Series A, and a no-upfront-cost model for dental practices that forces the company to screen its customers rather than chase them. A look at a medtech funding round, and at a go-to-market built by practitioners for practitioners.
At the end of August, Lupin Dental announced the close of a €15 million Series A. The round is led by Fynveur, a long-term investment company advised by Invus, which is contributing €10 million alongside existing shareholders, new private investors and a loan from Bpifrance. Invus joins the board. The Montpellier-based start-up has developed a robot that automatically prepares teeth for veneers under the dentist's supervision. The funding should allow it to finalize its product and launch commercially in 2027.
At Uclic, we like to go beyond the press release. I met Stéfen Koubi, co-founder of Lupin Dental, at the company's offices in Montpellier. He told me how the project started, how Lupin has funded itself so far, and about a business model unlike that of any other medical robotics company.
Twenty-five years teaching a technique, then the decision to automate it
Lupin Dental was incorporated in 2019, but the project dates back to 2010. It brings together two dentists with unusual careers: Stéfen Koubi, in Marseille, and Galip Gürel, in Istanbul, one of the leading figures in aesthetic dentistry. Both run private practices, teach at university, lecture around the world, have written books translated into more than ten languages, and each runs a training center.
For years, their job was to make their technique reproducible by other dentists, by hand. The robot grew out of the limits of that approach.
“We offered our methodologies so that every dentist could learn our technique manually, with a precise method that made it more reproducible. After doing that for twenty-five years, we think it's time for the next step: full digitalization. Taking out the human factor, the human skill, which is the limiting factor. It's a gift to have it, but not everyone does.”
The issue is volume. “If you want to deliver quality care at very high volume, only robotics can solve that equation.”
A brain in Turkey, an arm in Montpellier
The company really got going in 2021, with its first hires and first funding rounds. Its organization follows the logic of the product. “In Montpellier, we develop the medical device, meaning the robot, the executor. In Turkey, we develop the brain: the software that automatically calculates what needs to be done and planned.” The robotic arm also has to meet the safety rules of a medical device.
In three and a half years, the teams went from a blank sheet to the first patient: in January 2025, Lupin carried out its first-in-human procedure in India. All on a very tight budget for a medical robotics project, which imposed a particular discipline.
“When you don't have much money and you're frugal, it makes for full days, but it forces you to push yourself and reach a very high level of efficiency on every front. There's no room left for fat, you stay right on the bone and muscle.”
What the robot does, and what it changes for the practice
A veneer is a thin piece of ceramic bonded to the visible surface of a tooth. For Stéfen Koubi, it is the restoration of the future, and not only for aesthetic reasons: it means touching far less of the tooth. “Today, apart from redoing an existing crown, we no longer do crowns as a first-line treatment. We do bonded partial restorations, the generic name for which is the veneer.”
The critical step is preparation: removing just enough enamel to make room for the veneer. That is the step Lupin automates. Bonding stays in the dentist's hands.
“Bonding veneers is like following a recipe. It's not unimportant, but it can be learned. Preparation, if you over-prepare, the case is ruined. If you remove too much enamel from the tooth, your veneers won't last as long.”
The practitioner plans the case in the software, then supervises the robot with a foot on a pedal, “without putting their hands in the mouth, except to bond the veneers.” The gap between the planned and the actual preparation is around one hundred microns, with an awake patient moving their head.
That precision makes it possible to change the order of steps. The lab receives, in advance, the file of the tooth as it will be prepared, and makes the veneers before the appointment. “The veneers are on the bench before I've even touched the teeth.” The robot prepares, then the practitioner bonds straight away, under the same anesthesia. “We do in a single appointment what used to take three or four, with temporaries and impressions.”
€30 million raised without professional investors, then Invus
Before this Series A, Lupin raised around €25 million between 2021 and 2026, plus €5 million from Bpifrance, without a single professional investor. A track record that did not make conversations with venture capital funds any easier.
“Lupin is a somewhat unusual animal to tame, especially for VCs, because they see us as an animal that went too far, too high, without them. That's normal, they're there to deploy their business model.”
In other words, it becomes hard for a fund to come in at a valuation a company built without it. In June, Lupin found the profile it was looking for. This Series A is its sixth round, and the first with an institutional investor. Invus, backed by a Belgian family and based in New York, invests across several sectors including biotech, without the constraint of a traditional fund that has to return money to its limited partners after a few years.
“These are people who think in the very long term, which is very valuable for us. They want to take a project to its full potential, and they know that big exit multiples can only come from disruptive companies.”
What the €15 million will fund
Lupin has treated around a hundred patients in India, where four machines are installed. UKCA marking, obtained in June, made it possible to install a first machine in London. Between now and the end of the year, the goal is to increase the number of cases to finalize the product.
“It's one thing to have a technology that works, it's another to have a perfect commercial product. The machine is safe, there are no issues with patients. But sometimes it can take a bit too long, sometimes there can be a stop, lots of little things that are part of life with a tech product. That's what we're smoothing out, so the user experience is at its best.”
The commercial launch is planned for 2027. Before that, a third geography is being added: a contract has just been signed in the Philippines, covered by Lupin's Indian partner, with delivery planned for December. For 2027, the plan includes seven new machines, mainly in the United Kingdom, where the sales pipeline is already well filled, and in the Philippines. India will stay at its current scope: the company still needs to build out its clinical and technical support in each country.
A robot that isn't for sale
This is the most original part of the model. Lupin does not sell its robots: the practice pays for each case treated, under a five-year contract.
“We don't sell equipment, because Lupin isn't equipment, it's a service. It's the equivalent of SaaS, but for a robot.”
Why don't other robot makers do the same? For Stéfen Koubi, it all comes down to what the robot brings to the practitioner.
“We're no smarter than anyone else. Other companies offer, with their robots, a treatment the user already knows how to do by hand. Lupin, because it's an automated technique, addresses a treatment that only 5% of dentists in the world perform.”
That is what makes pay-per-case acceptable to customers. Lupin gives them two things: automated execution at the level of the best experts, every day, and a different experience for both practitioner and patient, with treatment in a single appointment.
The absence of upfront investment comes straight from the founders' background.
“Lupin is a company created by dentists for dentists. No offense, but it's not a company created by engineers for surgeons. We know our colleagues, we know how they work, and we know full well that asking a practice to invest hundreds of thousands of euros is science fiction. That's not the economic reality of a dental practice, which isn't a clinic or a hospital with other resources.”
A go-to-market built on selection
This is the part that interests us most at Uclic. Lupin sells direct. In the United Kingdom, the company is setting up its own legal entity. It manufactures in France, on its assembly line in Valence, and ships directly to customers. On the ground, it deploys a sales force, clinical support and maintenance engineers, with ratios already set: one clinical support specialist for every two machines, one field engineer for every three.
The market is split into two segments. The priority is high-end practices, often group partnerships, that already do veneers and want to go further thanks to the efficiency gains. Next come dental groups, the DSOs, which offer very little of this treatment today for lack of trained practitioners, and want to add it to their offering. Lupin is starting with the former, but discussions with the latter are already well advanced.
On acquisition, the business model does much of the work. Because Lupin doesn't sell its robot and asks for no upfront investment, the main obstacle for a practice disappears: it doesn't have to find hundreds of thousands of euros to get equipped. That makes acquisition much easier, and interested practices often reach out on their own. The founders' reputation, built over twenty-five years of lectures and training courses, and social media, LinkedIn first, do the rest. Sales are led by Olivier Tintorini, Chief Commercial Officer, who drives the global deployment roadmap.
But Stéfen Koubi insists: it isn't free.
“We provide a machine, but you have to follow a whole set of rules and sign very specific contractual terms. Customers commit to a certain volume of cases over a certain period. If they don't meet that, we won't place a machine, because it's a heavy cost for the company.”
Since each machine is a cost for Lupin, the sales work is mostly about selecting practices. This is where Olivier Tintorini plays a key role: every practice is screened twice by his team before any installation, a selection process Stéfen Koubi describes as “surgical.” A rare position for a start-up, which Stéfen Koubi attributes to the technology itself: it lets Lupin “put itself in that position.”
Key takeaways
Three lessons from this conversation that go beyond medtech.
First: The business model is part of the product. By removing the upfront investment, Lupin removes the main barrier to purchase for a dental practice, which does not have a hospital's budget. In return, the company carries the cost of the machines, and volume commitments are what protect its model.
Second: You can charge per use for what customers can't do on their own. A robot that performs a procedure the practitioner already masters sells as equipment. A robot that opens access to a treatment performed by 5% of dentists becomes a service, and justifies pay-per-case over five years.
Third: When the model makes acquisition easier, sales becomes qualification. With no investment to ask for, leads come in more easily, and Olivier Tintorini's team spends its time picking the right ones. Moving to DSOs, already under way, will be a different exercise: fewer accounts, more decision-makers around the table and longer cycles.
We will be following the first UK installations and the 2027 commercial launch closely.
Lupin Dental at a glance
- Headquarters: Montpellier (R&D and medical device). Software developed in Turkey, assembly in Valence.
- Founded: 2019, by Dr Stéfen Koubi and Dr Galip Gürel, specialists in aesthetic dentistry. Operational since 2021.
- Product: Lupin Robotic System, an automated tooth-preparation robot for veneers, supervised by the practitioner.
- Approvals: India and United Kingdom (UKCA marking, June 2026). The system is not yet approved in the European Union or the United States.
- Traction: Around a hundred patients treated, four machines in India, one in London, a delivery to the Philippines planned for December 2026.
- Model: Pay-per-case, five-year contracts, no upfront investment for the practice.
- Latest round: €15M Series A (August 2026), led by Fynveur, advised by Invus (€10M), with existing shareholders, new private investors and a Bpifrance loan.
- Previous funding: Around €25M raised since 2021, plus €5M from Bpifrance.
- Website: lupindental.com
Article published by Uclic, growth marketing and AI agency. Interview conducted by Alexis Christine-Amara on October 15, 2026, in Montpellier.