DENTREAD awarded CORFO Seed Fund to boost AI for dental imaging
DENTREAD secures public funding from CORFO to develop advanced tools for dental diagnostics powered by artificial intelligence.
We’re proud to share that DENTREAD has been officially awarded the CORFO Seed Capital (Capital Semilla Inicia), a highly competitive innovation grant provided by CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción de Chile) — Chile’s national economic development agency.
This non-dilutive fund of CLP $20,000,000 (approx. USD $20,000) will allow us to continue developing our AI-based platform for dental image analysis, combining medical expertise with cutting-edge machine learning.
🏛 What is CORFO?
CORFO is one of Chile’s most prominent public institutions for innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological advancement. Through different programs and funding mechanisms, it supports early-stage companies that have the potential to generate technological, social, or environmental impact.
Among its programs, the Capital Semilla Inicia is focused on startups in their early validation and development stages, offering financial and technical support to help them become sustainable and scalable.
📋 The Application Process
The journey toward securing this grant involved a rigorous multi-stage evaluation process:
- Initial Application: Submission of a detailed business plan, technological proposal, and growth roadmap.
- Technical Evaluation: Review by external experts in areas like innovation, scalability, and scientific merit.
- Pitch & Defense: A live pitch and Q&A session in front of a technical jury, highlighting the novelty of our solution and its clinical potential.
- Final Selection: After multiple filters, DENTREAD was selected among hundreds of applicants to receive the grant.
"Receiving this funding is both a validation of our technical direction and a strong incentive to keep pushing forward with clinical-grade AI tools."
💼 Use of Funds
The grant will be invested strategically across core areas of development:
| Area | Description |
|---|---|
| Software Engineering | Development of our web platform for visualization, annotation, and data handling |
| Machine Learning R&D | Model training (segmentation/classification) using annotated datasets |
| Cloud & DevOps | Infrastructure for secure model deployment and scalable processing |
| Clinical Partnerships | Working with dentists to test and validate AI predictions in real settings |
| Market Expansion Strategy | Preparing for institutional pilots, certifications, and academic outreach |
🚀 What’s Next: Future Plans and Challenges
This funding is just the beginning. Looking ahead, we plan to:
- Apply to CORFO Capital Semilla Expande, a follow-up fund for growth-stage startups
- Collaborate with universities and hospitals to collect more annotated data
- Improve model accuracy with active learning and human-in-the-loop pipelines
- Publish technical results and explore certification pathways (e.g. CE, FDA)
Challenges on the horizon:
- Scaling up annotation efforts while maintaining clinical accuracy
- Navigating data privacy regulations in medical imaging
- Ensuring the models are explainable, robust, and generalizable across populations
We’re deeply grateful to CORFO and the startup ecosystem in Chile for believing in our vision. This grant is not only a milestone — it’s a foundation for what’s next.
Stay tuned as we continue to build the next generation of tools for dental care, powered by trustworthy AI.
If you're interested in partnerships, testing our platform, or simply learning more — reach out to us!