Wally Company Spotlight: Rebuilding Preventive Dental Care

Wally is a New York-based preventive dental care company built around a $249 annual membership, unlimited cleanings and diagnostics, and an insurance-free care model. Co-founder and CEO Tyler Burnett leads the company alongside co-founders Stipe Latkovic and Chelsea Patel, with Chief Clinical Officer Sarah Eller helping shape the clinical experience.

The company matters because it is attacking a stubborn access problem with a different incentive system. Traditional dentistry often earns more when treatment gets more complex. Wally earns recurring membership revenue by helping members return more often, catch problems earlier, and avoid unnecessary interventions. That makes prevention the product instead of the brochure copy.

Wally now reports more than 50,000 members across 15 locations in New York City, Philadelphia, Jersey City, and Chicago. Its next test is scale. A $25M Series A led by Maveron, with participation from Bling Capital and angel investor Jack Abraham, is intended to help Wally expand to 100 locations by the end of 2027.

About Wally

Wally sells a direct-pay dental membership for $249 per year. Members receive unlimited cleanings, exams, X-rays, 3D scans, and custom at-home whitening without using dental insurance. Wally also offers paid services including clear aligners, nightguards, periodontal therapy, and Curodont treatment for early-stage cavities.

The company is not a full-service restorative practice. Wally says it does not perform procedures such as root canals, implants, or traditional fillings. Instead, its model concentrates on preventive care, diagnostics, and early intervention, then connects patients with specialists when more extensive treatment is required.

That boundary is strategically important. Wally is not trying to reproduce every service inside a conventional dental office. It is narrowing the operating model around high-frequency preventive care, transparent pricing, and a consistent member experience.

The Problem Wally Is Solving

Dental care has a frequency problem wrapped inside a trust problem. Appointment delays, surprise bills, insurance rules, and fear of painful treatment can keep patients away until a small issue becomes a larger one. Wally's model changes the economics by charging members directly and encouraging repeat visits.

The company says its members visit an average of three times per year. Its Series A announcement also reports a 4.9-star member rating and 97% hygienist retention. Those are company-reported metrics, but together they show what Wally is trying to optimize: more preventive touchpoints, a better consumer experience, and a clinical workforce that stays.

Wally's platform combines digital X-rays, 3D intraoral scans, saliva testing, and AI-assisted detection. The goal is not to turn dentistry into a software demo. The technology is meant to make findings more visible to patients, standardize clinical workflows, and give clinicians better information during each visit.

Why the Model Is Different

Wally removes insurance from the preventive-care transaction. That gives members a single annual price and gives the company a recurring relationship instead of a series of disconnected appointments. It also puts pressure on Wally to deliver enough convenience and perceived value that members renew.

The physical care experience is part of that proposition. Wally uses Swiss AIRFLOW technology and Guided Biofilm Therapy for cleanings, and it promotes non-invasive treatment for early-stage tooth decay. The company pairs those clinical tools with online booking, a member app, and an internal operating platform that supports scheduling and clinician workflows.

This is a consumer-health business with real operational weight. Software can standardize an appointment, but it cannot clean teeth, train clinicians, or make a new location dependable. Wally's advantage will come from combining brand, clinical quality, labor retention, and repeatable site operations, not from any single feature.

Leadership and Founding Story

Wally traces its origin to its founders' frustration as dental patients. Tyler Burnett, Stipe Latkovic, and Chelsea Patel built the company around the belief that preventive care should be easier to access, simpler to price, and less intimidating to experience.

Tyler Burnett is the current co-founder and CEO. Wally's official announcement identifies Stipe Latkovic and Chelsea Patel as co-founders, while current public evidence does not support assigning either person an additional operating title. Sarah Eller, RDH, is identified on Wally's website as Chief Clinical Officer. The same official page lists Melineh Issayans, DDS, as Lead Dentist and Kevin Walker, DDS, as Lead Orthodontist.

The leadership structure reflects the hard part of the business. Wally needs consumer-brand discipline, operating rigor, and clinical credibility at the same time. Any one of those can attract attention. The combination determines whether a membership health model survives contact with real patients.

Traction, Funding, and Expansion

Wally says it has surpassed 50,000 members across 15 locations. The company also reports that members visit three times per year on average. Those figures suggest that the model is generating repeat behavior, not simply discounted first visits.

In October 2026, Wally announced a $25M Series A led by Maveron, with Bling Capital and Jack Abraham participating. The round also came with a strategic partnership with EMS Dental, the company behind the AIRFLOW technology used in Wally's cleanings.

Wally plans to use the capital to grow from 15 to 100 locations by the end of 2027, beginning with Washington, DC, Atlanta, Austin, and Miami. The expansion also creates a hiring signal. Wally says it is recruiting clinicians and operational leaders, and it directs candidates to its LinkedIn jobs page.

What Wally Signals for Consumer Health

Wally is testing whether a preventive health service can behave like a trusted consumer subscription without losing clinical seriousness. The annual fee creates a simple front door. The real product is the operating system behind it: predictable pricing, repeat appointments, standardized diagnostics, and consistent care across locations.

That makes Wally relevant beyond dentistry. Consumer health companies increasingly compete on whether they can turn an episodic, confusing service into an ongoing relationship. The winners will still need licensed professionals, quality controls, and sound unit economics. Better software cannot negotiate with biology, and a sharp brand cannot cover for weak care.

Wally's next chapter will be measured less by launch announcements than by repetition. Can the company preserve clinical quality while adding cities, teams, and locations? Can it keep members returning and clinicians staying as the network grows? If Wally can answer those questions at 100 locations, preventive dentistry may start to look less like an appointment category and more like a durable consumer-health platform.