Dandy wants to do for dental labs what modern factories did for smartphones: make high-quality products, fast, at scale, without losing the custom fit patients need. In an interview with 3DPrint.com, Dandy’s Vice President of Robotics & Advanced Manufacturing, Sriny Sundararajan, explained how the company is “stitching together 3D printing, AI, and robotics to deliver mass customization” for crowns, bridges, dentures, night guards, implants, and clear aligners.
Founded in 2020 and based in New York City, Dandy has already raised over $170 million from top investors to transform the $30 billion dental laboratory industry. The company has surpassed $100 million in revenue in its first two years, built digital factories in Utah and Texas, and today works with more than 6,000 dentists across the U.S. Its fully integrated model covers everything from intraoral scanning to AI-assisted design, 3D printed prosthetics, and robotic finishing, all under one roof.
“Dandy controls the full workflow, making it one of the few vertically integrated players in this multi-billion dollar dental lab industry,” Sundararajan emphasized. “Today, we are in a transformation phase where we are using robotics and AI as well, AI on the design side, and robotics on the manufacturing side. More importantly, we are applying additive manufacturing at scale.”
Robotics at work in Dandy’s digital dental lab.
Vertical integration (with 3D printing at the center)
In a nutshell, Dandy doesn’t sell manufacturing automation equipment, at least yet. Instead, it runs a vertically integrated lab: dentists scan patients chairside, while Dandy handles design and manufacturing in its factories in Utah and Texas.
Sundararajan compared this approach to Tesla’s model: “Much like Tesla, which oversees everything from design to production in its factories, Dandy is vertically integrated. It starts with the device that scans the patient’s mouth. From there, we handle the digital design of the dental appliance and move it straight into our own factories for production. The only step we don’t manage directly is the final delivery, which goes out through UPS or FedEx.”
3D printing sits right at the heart of that workflow, especially for removables like full or partial dentures and night guards, which are commonly printed today. Fixed products like crowns and bridges are typically milled, but everything after printing or milling still requires detailed finishing to match each patient’s unique anatomy. That’s also the part Dandy is working to automate.
While Dandy doesn’t disclose the specific brands of printers it uses, the broader dental industry has been moving toward large-format resin systems purpose-built for high throughput. Over the years, 3DPrint.com has been following how labs rely on machines like Carbon’s L1, EnvisionTEC’s Xtreme 8K, Stratasys’ J5 DentaJet, and 3D Systems’ Figure 4 Modular. These platforms are capable of producing thousands of crowns, dentures, or models per day, making them ideal for the scale that companies like Dandy are targeting.
Inside Dandy’s automated production line.
Mass customization (a “SKU of one” problem)
Sundararajan has a lot to do with Dandy’s approach. He spent years scaling automation at Apple during the iPhone’s explosive growth, and later building digital twin software. What drew him to dental was the chance to apply that kind of scale to products where every unit is different.
Sriny Sundararajan.
“At Apple, we were producing a large volume of the same SKU [Stock Keeping Unit] every time. Here, every product is unique,” Sundararajan said — what he calls a “SKU of one.” In other words, each appliance is its own distinct item, custom-made for a single patient. “If I could give it at the scale at which we can do a smartphone, then we have unlocked something big, and robotics is a key element of that.”
That’s also why Dandy doesn’t build every component from scratch. Instead of reinventing the wheel, the team integrates proven building blocks, including industrial robots, printers, and other hardware, and writes the application-specific software and process around them.
“We don’t make our own printers; instead, we take commercially available printers and integrate them into custom systems built for our applications. Think of it like we don’t make our own steering, but we’re making our own car. We source the robots, assemble the systems, and collaborate with third parties to build the machines. Our focus is on the application itself: understanding the specific problems in dental manufacturing and tailoring the technology to solve them.”
His group has grown to 30 engineers in the past six months to drive that integration.
AI for inspection and design (turning defects into data)
“If robotics is precision hands, AI is the extra set of eyes. We are using computer vision and machine learning to catch defects that normally rely on a technician’s subjective visual check. We have built what I call an AOI, or automated optical inspection. We are using an AI model to learn from defects in the manual process, and then use cameras to capture dozens of images of a crown and apply that AI model to find defects. Usually, it’s done visually with a shade tab. We have automated it using cameras and AI.”
On the front end, Dandy’s digital workflow also changes how dentists work. According to Sundararajan, the company is the first to offer live design reviews during scanning, allowing Dandy’s experts to connect with a dentist in real time, provide immediate feedback, and help prevent errors that would otherwise require re-scans or extra patient visits.
Robotic system handles dental restorations during finishing.
When it comes to production, Sundararajan didn’t share the exact figures, but pointed out that Dandy’s output is already in the thousands of units per day, a leap compared to traditional dental labs that average around 50 cases.
When it comes to materials, zirconia dominates fixed restorations like crowns and bridges because of its strength and durability. For removable devices such as dentures and night guards, Dandy uses resins, including some proprietary blends. Veneers are also part of the mix, often made with e.max, a ceramic material considered both strong and natural-looking.
Why scale matters to patients (and dentists)
If you’ve ever waited days for a crown that didn’t fit, you know the pain. Sundararajan wants to change that experience.
“The biggest challenge with traditional processes is that the appliance often doesn’t fit. It needs to be reworked locally, and sometimes patients are sent home and asked to return. Where I see dentistry going is toward a more seamless experience — you come in once, and everything is taken care of before you leave. That kind of user experience is the dream.”
At scale, this matters for both patients and practice economics. Faster, more reliable turnaround means dentists can plan care with confidence and patients avoid repeat visits.
“With automation, we can produce better quality products and provide units within the committed time,” he said. “There’s no delay because somebody did not show up to work. Plus, having it in the U.S. and serving the needs of the U.S. is going to be the key differentiator.”
The hardest problem to automate (and why Dandy focuses there)
For any dental technician, finishing is where art meets science. Matching the shade, translucency, and surface texture of the patient’s mouth is an individual experience, something Sundararajan compares to a fingerprint. Based on a person’s behaviors, the color and shade of their teeth differ. Because it’s an artistic work, nobody has been able to scale this part of the business. But the executive says Dandy is bringing robotics into the finishing stage to solve that problem.
This is also why additive is so valuable beyond just printing shells or models. Layer-by-layer control, combined with vision systems, AOI, and precise motion, creates that desired path to repeatable personalization.
Custom dental crowns being processed under automated finishing equipment.
Sundararajan believes now is the moment when the dental lab industry shifts from manual craft to a digital scale: “Dental is at an inflection point. With what Dandy has achieved with its platform, automation is going to be the key.”
Recent company moves back that up. In April, Dandy appointed Cong Yu as Head of Engineering, a former Google Research scientist and VP of Engineering at Celonis, and said it would triple engineering and R&D investment in 2025. The company also reported surpassing $100 million in revenue in its first two years, and plans to hire more than 50 engineers this year across areas like advanced geometry, CAD, and intelligent manufacturing systems.
Sundararajan’s goal is aggressive: “Our target is to reach scale within the next 12 months, if possible.”
For now, Dandy is focused 100% on dental. There’s still plenty of room to grow, with tens of millions of Americans relying on crowns, dentures, or orthodontics (and with every case being unique).
“If you only need personalized healthcare in small volumes, humans do it best. But if you want to make custom manufacturing affordable, then scale is important. And if you want to achieve this at scale, the only way is by the use of AI and robotics, robotics for precision, and AI on the design side.”
He’s seen this before at Apple and believes dental is headed the same way, “from artisanal bottlenecks to digital, automated, patient-friendly workflows.”
“For the last hundred years, dental has been manual and craftsmanship,” he concluded. “We are definitely trying to disrupt the industry and make the experience better for the end user.”
Images courtesy of Dandy