Healthcare services & digital health · Dental care
Futura
A Mexico City company that lends dentists a free intraoral scanner in exchange for a minimum monthly spend on lab work, moving crowns, bridges and clear aligners in Mexico, Colombia and Peru onto a digital workflow.
The scanner is the hook
Futura’s pitch to a dentist in Mexico City or Bogota is simple: stop taking physical impressions. Sign up, agree to a minimum monthly spend on lab work, and Futura installs an intraoral scanner, a laptop and its case management software in the practice at no upfront cost. The company’s own frequently asked questions page is blunt about the arrangement: there is no extra cost to the doctor, provided the practice keeps up a minimum monthly purchase of laboratory treatments.
The lab work on the other end covers crowns, bridges, inlays, onlays, veneers and implant-supported restorations, plus a clear aligner line the company markets as an alternative to metal braces. A separate practice management product, priced from $32.50 to $35 a month per doctor, adds scheduling, a clinical record, lab order tracking and basic billing on top.
Y Combinator, which funded the company in its Winter 2020 batch, describes Futura on its company page with the phrase “the first digital dental laboratory in LATAM”. That claim has not been independently verified against competitors in the region.
The problem it is selling against
A digital scanner plus software plus a fabrication pipeline is a real capital outlay for an independent dentist, and most dental practices in Latin America are small, owner-operated clinics rather than corporate chains. Futura’s answer is to shift that capital cost onto itself and recover it through recurring lab revenue instead of a hardware sale, the same logic that Y Combinator’s listing frames as a subscription-like lab relationship. The bet is that a free scanner gets a dentist to switch her workflow, and that switching cost then locks in a steady stream of digital case files that Futura’s own lab fabricates.
Whether that model produces better clinical outcomes than a dentist buying her own scanner and shopping labs freely is not something any source reviewed for this profile addresses. What the company and its customers describe instead is speed and convenience: faster impressions, fewer redone cases, and a shorter round trip between the scan and the finished restoration.
Who is running it
No independent source reviewed for this profile names a founder or chief executive. Y Combinator’s company page lists an “Active Founders” section but the names did not render in the saved copy of the page, and no press coverage, LinkedIn founder profile or interview naming Futura’s leadership turned up in searches. The company’s Y Combinator primary partner is listed as Jared Friedman. LinkedIn lists Futura as a privately funded company with 201 to 500 employees, more than four times the 115 team size Y Combinator’s own listing shows; neither page dates its figure, so it is not clear whether the gap reflects growth over time or two different counting methods.
From Mexico City to three countries
Futura’s website is built around three country editions, for Mexico, Colombia and Peru, each with its own city landing pages. The Mexico City page names three customers directly: Dra. Nayeli Ugalde’s orthodontics practice Mas Ortodoncia, Dra. Sarah Ethel Guerrero’s Vida Dental Navarra, and an unnamed practice belonging to Dr. Mauricio Monterrubio, described as having grown its revenue after adopting digital workflows. A separate scanner-program page carries testimonials from three more named dentists: Dra. Clara Ines Castro, an oral and reconstructive implantologist, and orthodontists Dr. Francisco Ramirez and Dr. Alejandro Hernandez. None of the six cases includes case numbers, before-and-after data or an independent verification of the results described.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Y Combinator listing | Winter 2020 batch, status active, team size 115, based in Mexico City, primary partner Jared Friedman, as shown on Y Combinator’s site as of September 2026. | YC data |
| LinkedIn company page | 201 to 500 employees and “more than 1,000” doctors in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. The employee count is more than four times the figure on Y Combinator’s page. | Differs from YC listing |
| Device registration | No COFEPRIS registration or FDA record found under Futura, Futura Labs or Futuralabs. The company appears to supply dentists with a third-party scanner brand rather than a device of its own; no brand name for the hardware was found in any source reviewed. | Not found |
| SEC filings | No Form D under Futura, Futura Labs or Futuralabs in SEC EDGAR’s Form D mentions. A company simply named “Futura” appears on the research firm Tracxn with a Seed and Series A totaling $16.9 million from investors including Eurazeo, Axon Partners Group, United Ventures and Ithaca Capital, none of which are named anywhere in connection with the Mexico City dental company, and Ithaca Capital and United Ventures are based in Karachi and Milan respectively. That record does not match this company on sector, geography or any named investor and is not used here. | Not found |
| Named clinic customers | Mas Ortodoncia (Dra. Nayeli Ugalde) and Vida Dental Navarra (Dra. Sarah Ethel Guerrero) named on the company’s Mexico City page; individual testimonials from Dra. Clara Ines Castro, Dr. Francisco Ramirez, Dr. Alejandro Hernandez and Dr. Mauricio Monterrubio. All company-published. | Company-stated |
| Clinical or regulatory studies | No registered clinical trial, NIH award, NSF award or PubMed record tied to Futura, Futura Labs or Futuralabs turned up in any search. | Not found |
Read plainly: the clearest, most consistent facts about Futura come from Y Combinator’s own listing and the company’s own website and LinkedIn page. Nothing in the public record independently confirms the size of its team, the number of doctors it serves, or the scale of any funding it has raised. The one funding record that surfaces under the name “Futura” belongs to a different company entirely.
What to watch
- Whether Futura or its investors ever file a Form D or announce a named funding round; none has surfaced as of September 2026.
- Confirmation of who founded and currently leads the company; no source reviewed names a chief executive.
- Whether the gap between Y Combinator’s reported team size of 115 and LinkedIn’s 201 to 500 employees closes or is explained.
- Any regulatory filing for the intraoral scanner hardware Futura distributes, and which brand it is.
In their words
“Futura is the first digital dental laboratory in LATAM. We provide intraoral digital scanners to dentists in exchange for a minimum monthly spend on lab services, enabling a fully digital workflow for crowns, bridges, and other prosthetics.”
Company description, Y Combinator company page, accessed Sep 2026 · Company-stated
“He trabajado con FUTURA LABS hace unos años. Los pacientes han quedado muy contentos. Son muy cumplidos, el servicio al cliente muy efectivo y los costos adecuados.”
Dra. Clara Ines Castro, oral and reconstructive implantologist, Futura Labs website · Company-stated
“Tenía muy pocos pacientes que aceptarán un tratamiento con alineadores invisibles por el costo, sin embargo, al conocer la opción de Futura Labs pude aumentar la cantidad de pacientes con alineadores.”
Dr. Francisco Ramirez, orthodontist, Futura Labs website · Company-stated
“Con los Alineadores de Futura Labs ofrezco a mis pacientes comodidad, estética y máxima discreción en su tratamiento ortodontico.”
Dr. Alejandro Hernandez, orthodontist, Futura Labs website · Company-stated
“Hemos acompañado a +1,000 doctores en México, Colombia y Perú en su transición de la odontología análoga a la digital.”
Futura Labs, company LinkedIn page, accessed Sep 2026 · Company-stated
Related companies
Sources
- YC dataFUTURA: Digitizing dentistry in LatAm, Y Combinator company page
- CompanyFutura Labs company page
- CompanyHome Mexico, Futura Labs website
- CompanyServicios, Futura Labs website
- CompanyEscaner intraoral program page, Futura Labs website
- CompanySoftware dental pricing page, Futura Labs website
- CompanyPor que Futura, Futura Labs website
- CompanyLaboratorio dental en CDMX, Futura Labs website
- IndependentFutura funding rounds and investor list (a different company, not matched to this profile)
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
