The problem
For decades aligners were a premium product tied to Western brands and available only in select clinics — so across MENA, patients wanting straighter teeth mostly faced painful metal braces or nothing at all.
How it works
BASMA runs a fully digital orthodontic workflow: users connect with dentists and orthodontists at the click of a button, treatment planning is done in-house on the company’s software, and ISO/CE-certified invisible aligners are 3D-printed centrally. Partner clinics handle scans and fittings for mild-to-moderate crowding and spacing cases — treated in an average of six months — while remote-monitoring apps track progress between visits. “We make all of the treatment planning in-house, we listen and take the feedback of the patients, transmit it to our network partner clinics and constantly improve our offering,” the company told Wamda at the Series A.
Pain points
Costly Western aligner brands, conspicuous painful braces, endless clinic appointments, and quality orthodontics locked inside a handful of premium practices.
Business model
Consumer aligner treatments sold through a licensed partner-clinic network; clinics get digital tooling, training, treatment planning, and patient referrals from BASMA’s platform in return.
Challenges
Each Gulf market means new clinic partnerships and healthcare rules; remote treatment quality must stay consistent as the network spreads; and global aligner brands are pushing into the same GCC demand BASMA proved.
Funding
- Raised: $3M Series A in June 2021, led by MEVP with SOSF, IM Capital, and returning investors iSME, Cedar Mundi Ventures, and IFA Capital, to hire talent and grow the clinic network across the UAE, KSA, and the GCC (Wamda; FinSMEs).
- Founded by Dr. Cherif Massoud and Hrag Hayrabedian as a Lebanon-founded, now UK-headquartered, MENA-focused digital health platform (Wamda; FinSMEs).
Latest — Nov 2023
On 7 November 2023 BASMA announced an expanded partnership network of 16 orthodontic clinics across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Bahrain, with CEO Dr. Cherif Massoud framing it as modernizing how orthodontic treatment is delivered in the GCC (Basma company blog).