Innovation grant funding covering 62% of the total project cost
New jobs created, increasing workforce by 100%
Annual revenue predicted by the end of 2026
Three-year revenue forecast
With support from GM Business Growth Hub, My Dental Buddy has developed a world-first: a system that gives real-time brushing-technique feedback, without the need for smart toothbrushes.
“Children's oral health in the UK is in a real crisis,” warns Dr Ramzan Mohammed, a dentist with ten years' clinical experience. “Tooth decay is the number one reason children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital, and those living in the most deprived areas are nearly three times more likely to suffer from tooth decay. Access to NHS dentists has dropped so much that more than half of UK children haven't had a dental check-up in the last twelve months.”
Having seen first-hand the impact preventable dental disease has on families, Dr Mohammed was determined to make prioritising oral health engaging, accessible and sustainable. In 2023, he founded My Dental Buddy – a service combining national curriculum-aligned sessions in schools with accessible technology that extends impact beyond the classroom.
Now, thanks to support from our Innovation Service, the Manchester-based start-up is anticipating £524,000 annual revenue by the end of 2026, and has a three-year forecast of £1.6million.
Next-generation oral health
My Dental Buddy's digital platform provides schools with a live dashboard for optimising supervised brushing, tracking engagement and building positive oral health routines. At home, families can use the free app, which includes interactive brushing tools, habit trackers and dentist-approved educational resources to reinforce good oral health practices.
In 2025, the platform is progressing to its next phase: patent-pending real-time AI feedback that works with any toothbrush. “This step will finally give children the immediate, actionable guidance they need to improve their brushing technique at home, especially considering night-time brushing is most important,” Dr Mohammed explains.
Using just a standard smartphone or tablet camera, the technology analyses brushing in real time – tracking coverage, angle and inferred pressure, delivering instant feedback. My Dental Buddy removes the need for costly sensor-enabled brushes and offers dentist-level guidance for every child, even those using a £1 manual toothbrush.
“The benefits for children are clear,” agrees Dr Yousef Taktak, Health and Life Sciences Specialist at GM Business Growth Hub.
With the integration of this AI module, the team can sustain and build on the improvements achieved through dentist-led interventions, keeping plaque levels low over time rather than allowing them to build up again after dentist appointments or community nurse or dentist visits at school.
Dr Yousef Taktak, Health and Life Sciences Specialist at GM Business Growth Hub
Collaboration and funding accelerate AI innovation
Collaboration was crucial to realising the vision. Dr Taktak partnered with Dr Mohammed to define the project scope, recruit a machine learning specialist, and secure £19,520 of competitive innovation grant funding to develop My Dental Buddy, which is available to download on the Apple and Android app stores.
Ongoing work is focusing on building the custom AI module integration, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025. This will design and train a computer vision system with advanced components such as object detection to locate the face, hands and toothbrush of the user; pose estimation, which tracks brushing motion; optical flow techniques to measure movement and infer pressure; and deep learning models which generate real-time, accurate feedback and support longer-term habit analysis over an impressive range of environments, devices and users.
The project will create an AI brushing tool that gives live feedback on how well someone is brushing – including where they've covered, the angle of their brush, and how hard they're brushing – all captured through a single camera. Simple session summaries, plus easy-to-use dashboards will help parents to track progress. The system will collect data securely to continuously improve accuracy and quality of feedback. Development is fully aligned with GDPR requirements and safeguarding standards.
Strong commercial momentum
My Dental Buddy plans to launch the product in early 2026, with a full roll-out planned later in the year, and the commercial impact and potential of the AI module is clear. “The UK dental devices sector is worth over £350m annually and projected to increase to more than £460m by 2030, with recent rapid uptake of technology and AI predicted to outperform other equipment,” says Dr Taktak. “My Dental Buddy are at the cutting-edge of dental tech and well-positioned to thrive.”
The business has already secured a £248,000 two-year oral health programme contract with Oldham Council and is in a strong position to bid for multi-year contracts typically valued between £50,000 and £200,000 per local authority.
By offering affordable tech, the My Dental Buddy solution aligns directly with NHS England's focus on health equity, offering a cost-effective option for future NHS commissioning and prevention programmes.
The company remains open to partnering with health insurers, offering private-sector licensing for dental practices and corporate wellbeing programmes, as well as international development initiatives in regions where manual toothbrushes remain the norm, but smartphone access is growing.
Rolling out the new AI feature will lead to job creation in 2026. The team intends to hire a Manchester-based Technical Integration Specialist to support local authority roll-outs, followed by a Business Development Coordinator to help grow partnerships and expand the product's reach across the UK.
As the project moves towards completion, Dr Mohammed is clear about the role GM Business Growth Hub has played in getting My Dental Buddy to this stage: “Dr Taktak and the Innovation Service have been instrumental in moving this project forward.
Their funding and practical guidance have meant we've received exactly the sort of backing we needed at exactly the right time. We look forward to drawing on more of their support as our company continues to grow.
Dr Ramzan Mohammed, My Dental Buddy
Contact our team today on 0161 359 3050 or at bgh@growthco.uk to find out how specialist innovation support can help your business, whichever sector you’re in.
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