(Bloomberg) -- Overjet has raised $53.2 million from investors led by March Capital to develop and expand an AI platform that helps diagnose disease from scans and other data, aiming to make trips to the dentist easier for patients and insurers.

General Catalyst Partners, Insight Partners, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s E14 Fund and the American Dental Association joined the financing, Overjet said in an announcement Tuesday. The Series C round pegs Overjet’s valuation at $550 million, the startup added.

Founded in 2018 by MIT-trained computer scientist Wardah Inam, it’s one of many firms trying to harness artificial intelligence to streamline and advance health care, from aiding diagnoses to discovering new treatments. Inam said she learned from her own trips to the dentist that the industry has inconsistent standards for care — for instance, how to spot cavities versus plaque buildup. 

“Dentistry was more art than science, and I wanted to bring technology and AI to help dentists make objective decisions,” the 36-year-old founder told Bloomberg News. “We began building and then improving our AI systems with tens of millions of pieces of data, including X-rays, historical information, dentist notes, and periodontal charts.” 

She now hopes to take her platform, reliant on the same transformer models that power ChatGPT, beyond North America. It employs AI in multiple ways, from scanning X-rays to reading handwritten notes and parsing audio. The startup trains its AI system on millions of cases, and verifies its accuracy with a team of clinical specialists.

Overjet’s technology, which it said was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, helps dentists at thousands of practices across the US and Canada analyze oral disease and suggest treatments. Its customers include the majority of the 10 biggest US dental insurers, who employ the AI to review claims for their more than 120 million members, the startup said. 

(Updates with details of Overjet’s model. An earlier story was corrected to properly reflect its US clients after the startup revised a previous description.)

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