SmileDirectClub successors / uLab Systems

uLab Systems is a B2B orthodontic technology company built to put treatment control in the hands of licensed orthodontists rather than consumers. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, it is a private company reported to have raised roughly $121M from investors including Aperture Venture Partners, CareCapital, and Park West Asset Management, with around 84 employees. It is led by CEO Hal Beckham, with co-founders/leaders including Mic Falkel.

The company's core offering is uDesign, an AI-assisted, increasingly cloud-based digital treatment-planning platform marketed exclusively to orthodontists for chairside/in-office plan creation. Recent releases (uDesign 9, uDesign Cloud 2.0) add segmentation, self-planning, and in-office printing/STL export. It also makes uSmile clear aligners in Memphis (claiming to recycle over 80% of manufacturing material) and offers uAssist, an outsourced treatment-planning support service. uLab emphasizes workflow flexibility — letting orthodontists self-plan, print in-office, or outsource fabrication — and reported surpassing one million aligner treatments in 2024. Its named competitors include Align Technology (Invisalign) and Envista Holdings.

Important context: uLab Systems is not a successor to SmileDirectClub. SmileDirectClub was a direct-to-consumer teledentistry brand that filed for bankruptcy and abruptly ceased operations in December 2023; no single firm formally took over its business or patient base. uLab represents the philosophical opposite — a doctor-directed B2B model — making innovations in clinician-controlled digital aligner workflows directly relevant to its positioning.