Dental technology · AI documentation and coaching
Avora
A San Francisco startup that builds AI agents to listen in on dental appointments, draft the clinical notes, and coach staff on how they present treatment plans. Backed by Y Combinator and CRV, it says a $2.3 million seed round closed in mid 2026.
Good morning, before your sister's wedding
A sample coaching transcript on Avora's website opens mid conversation, with a treatment coordinator walking a patient through what an exam found and what to do about it before her sister's wedding. Underneath it, the software flags a coaching note for the provider: tie the patient's need to her want before quoting a price, and name the tradeoff between a root canal and an extraction so she hears both options in one breath.
That is the product in miniature. Avora records a dental appointment, turns the audio into a structured clinical note tied to a practice management system, and then scores how the provider explained the treatment plan, down to categories like rapport and trust, understanding and clarity, and education and empowerment.
The company's homepage claims a 1.5 hour daily time savings per provider, a 22 percentage point lift in treatment plan acceptance, and a 7x increase in collections for treatment coordinators. Those are the company's own numbers, drawn, it says, from more than 35,000 patient visits.
The gap it targets
Avora's pitch rests on one statistic repeated across its materials: dental practices lose roughly half of proposed treatment plans. In its Y Combinator launch post, the company put it this way: dentistry is a $150 billion industry where providers ask patients to pay thousands of dollars to fix problems they often cannot see, and the average treatment plan runs over $4,000 for diagnoses patients do not understand. Confusion and skepticism follow, and patients decline care they need.
Staffing compounds it. The launch post cites the American Dental Association's finding that over half of US practices have struggled to hire and retain staff since the pandemic, leaving treatment coordinators and hygienists stretched across scheduling, insurance, financing, and case presentation. Avora's answer is to let AI agents draft the notes and coach the conversation, so a smaller team can run more patients through with more consistent explanations.
Founders
Danny Bessonov and Justin Zhou met on the second day of freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania's Jerome Fisher Management and Technology program, and have worked together since. Bessonov built encryption features for unmanned aerial vehicles at Anduril Industries, worked on core payment architecture for Ramp's Bill Pay product, and did product intelligence work at the voice computing startup Wispr AI. He was also a Partner at Dorm Room Fund, investing in student founded companies while still an undergraduate.
Zhou led AI agent engineering at Infinitus Systems, a Series C healthcare automation company, where he built what the company describes as the first LLM driven healthcare call automation. He also worked as lead product manager on Cloudflare's Page Shield, taking it from zero to $2 million in annual recurring revenue.
The two started the company as ShowAndTell, a name that pointed at the original idea: agents that would create interactive, patient facing treatment plan explanations. Their Y Combinator launch post from the Fall 2024 batch introduces the founders as building AI agents for dental patient operations, describing agents that educate patients after a visit and check in with them afterward to drive re-care. The company later rebranded to Avora and shifted its center of gravity from patient facing explainers to a scribe and coaching platform aimed at the practice's own staff.
From launch to seed
Avora's public timeline runs in two beats. On August 5, 2025, the company announced its formal launch through EIN Presswire, describing itself as already backed by Y Combinator and CRV, with “Nearly 100 practices” in its pipeline and early DSO partners reporting double digit gains in case acceptance. That release named Farhad Attaie as the executive leading go to market and listed a Clinical and Strategic Advisory Council of DSO founders and operators.
Ten months later, Group Dentistry Now, a dental industry trade outlet, published what it labeled a sponsored press release announcing a $2.3 million seed round led by CRV, with participation from Y Combinator and scouts from Sequoia and Thrive. That release said revenue had grown tenfold over the prior year and that hundreds of dental practices and DSOs had adopted the platform since its launch. The deal aggregator Dealroom picked up the same figures, citing Group Dentistry Now as its source.
It is not clear from the public record whether the $2.3 million reported in June 2026 is new capital raised after the August 2025 launch, or a formal announcement of money that had already closed by the time Avora described itself as CRV backed a year earlier. No SEC Form D notice has been found under the names Avora or ShowAndTell as of September 25, 2026.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Y Combinator record | Listed as founded 2024, Fall 2024 batch, team size 4, status active, primary partner Pete Koomen. Originally launched as ShowAndTell. | Accelerator record |
| SEC Form D | No filing found under Avora or ShowAndTell in SEC EDGAR company search as of Sep 25, 2026. A separate entity, Avora Holdings, Ltd., filed a Form D in 2021 from Woodinville, Washington, three years before this company existed and unrelated to dentistry. | Not found |
| Seed round | $2.3 million led by CRV, with Y Combinator and scouts from Sequoia and Thrive, announced June 15, 2026 by Group Dentistry Now, labeled a sponsored press release, and repeated by Dealroom. | Company-stated |
| Named customers | Keystone Dental Partners, Shared Practices Group, and Airway Dentists are quoted by name and title in the company's own release. No independent confirmation of these relationships was found. | Company-stated |
| Usage metrics | Company claims include an 18 to 25 percent lift in case acceptance, up to 1.5 hours saved per provider daily, $80,000 in reactivated treatment at one practice, and a 12 percent monthly treatment conversion gain across early DSO partners. All figures are self-reported. | Company-stated |
| Practice management integrations | Company says it integrates with OpenDental, Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Denticon, and Dentrix Ascend, and supports standalone configurations. | Company-stated |
| Peer-reviewed evidence | No PubMed papers referencing the company or its product were found. A single unrelated PubMed record turned up for the search term Avora, a 2016 Portuguese language study on chronic disease classification with no connection to this company. | Not found |
Read plainly: the strongest independent fact on record is that Y Combinator backed a company by this name in its Fall 2024 batch. Everything about revenue growth, case acceptance lift, customer count, and the size of the seed round comes from the company itself or from trade outlets restating the company's own release. No SEC filing, court record, or independent audit has surfaced to confirm the dollar figures.
What to watch
- Whether a Form D ever appears under Avora's name on SEC EDGAR for the reported $2.3 million seed round.
- Independent, non-syndicated reporting on the round, beyond outlets that cite Group Dentistry Now's sponsored release as their only source.
- Whether the August 2025 launch backing and the June 2026 seed announcement turn out to be the same money or two separate raises.
- Confirmation from Keystone Dental Partners, Shared Practices Group, or Airway Dentists outside of company-published material.
In their words
“We were amazed by how easily our teams adopted Avora. Within weeks, over 70% of our patient interactions ran through the platform, saving dozens of hours each week. We can’t imagine going back.”
Tammy Kevin, COO, Keystone Dental Partners, quoted in the June 2026 release · Company release
“Danny and Justin have built AI products at some of tech’s fastest-scaling companies,” said Brittany Walker, General Partner at CRV. “They’ve brought that expertise to dentistry, delivering real results. It’s clear this team knows how to build products people actually use.”
Brittany Walker, General Partner, CRV, June 2026 release · Company release
“Every month without systematic case acceptance improvement costs $80,000+ in lost revenue per practice,” said Farhad Attaie, leading Avora’s go-to-market strategy. “The competitive advantage goes to practices that act now.”
Farhad Attaie, go to market lead, August 2025 launch release · Company release
“After 20 years in dental operations, I’ve never seen technology that so seamlessly improves both financial performance and patient care quality.”
Dr. Aman Kaur, Founder of Women in DSO, August 2025 launch release · Company release
“Avora solves the fundamental challenge we face scaling clinical excellence. What used to require extensive training now happens systematically.”
Dr. Andrew Matta, Co-founder of NADG, August 2025 launch release · Company release
“Avora bridges the gap between clinical excellence and operational efficiency that practices have struggled with for decades.”
Dr. Tzur Gabi, Founder of Primary Integrative Dentistry, August 2025 launch release · Company release
Related companies
Sources
- Accelerator recordAvora: Agents for dental operations, Y Combinator company page
- Public recordSEC EDGAR company search, Avora, Form D filings
- Public recordForm D, Avora Holdings, Ltd., CIK 0001883440
- CompanyAvora Raises $2.3M as Hundreds Adopt AI-Powered Documentation and Case Acceptance Platform
- IndependentAvora raises $2.3M for AI platform saving dental providers 1.5 hours daily
- IndependentAvora raises $2.3M seed to bring AI documentation to dental practices
- CompanyAI Leaders from Ramp and Infinitus launch Avora to tackle Dentistry’s biggest operational challenge
- CompanyThe AI platform for dental charting and coaching, Avora homepage
- CompanyAI Dental Case Presentation Scorecards
- IndependentDaniel Bessonov founder profile
- IndependentAvora Review 2026, Industry-Specific AI Tool
- Public recordShowAndTell company profile
- Public recordPubMed search results for Avora
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
