to promote Dubai as a dental tourism hub SEHTEQ invests in a unique web and mobile Platform to create dental tourism packages

The leading medical tourism facilitator “SEHTEQ”  has announced that it has invested in Dubai-based startup Udenz – a unique web and mobile platform that enables patients to easily search, compare and book dental appointments - to create dental tourism packages and promote Dubai as a dental tourism hub. The announcement coincides as part of a much larger pre-series A[IS1] round that Udenz is currently raising which includes an equity crowdfunding campaign with multi-regulated platform Eureeca, in which the dental platform is targeting AED 1 million in investment. SEHTEQ has committed a larger amount to Udenz over multiple milestones.

SEHTEQ’s investment in Udenz is in line with the vision of H. H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai ‎ and Chairman of Executive Council, to launch Dubai as a “Global Destination for Medical Tourism” in 2016. The initiative has a target of over 500,000 international medical tourists by 2020. In support for the Crown Princes’ vision, Dr. Laila Al Marzouqi, Head of Dubai Medical Tourism was recently quoted saying: “We aspire to position Dubai as the first medical tourism destination in the Mena region and to be among the top 10 medical tourism destinations in the world”.

“Udenz is a hyper-growth startup and has tripled their network of dentist over the past few months. Today, Udenz lists more than 2,000 verified dentists in the region,” said Dr. Saif AlJaibeji, Co-Founder of SEHTEQ. Udenz was listed by Forbes Magazine among 50 startups to watch in UAE in 2016, and the company acquired 60,000 users from Dubai and the GCC since the launch of its mobile app and more than 10 thousand searches on its website.

“This investment will help us to continue our growth path and introduce new revenue streams from dental tourism packages based on SEHTEQ’s successful diagnostic and surgical treatment packages,” said Dr. Hisham Safadi, Udenz’s Founder and CEO. “SEHTEQ is global award winner having been named as the best medical tourism facilitator exceeding 5,000 referrals.”

“All of SEHTEQ’s medical tourism packages sell very well to corporate buyers, including government and insurance companies, and also to individual patients, and we are confident this partnership will bring the SEHTEQ know-how to Udenz and reflect positively on our growth moving forward,” added Manoj Aheeray, Udenz’s Co-Founder.

According to Dr. Mohammad Naji from the Liberty Dental Clinic and Dubai Beauty TV Show: “Dubai is well placed on the medical and dental tourism map, with the right set of regulations from the Dubai Health Authority’s Medical Tourism Council and support from Emirates Airlines. Liberty Clinic is a key player in the market and this is reflected in our numbers; more than half of our patients in 2016 qualified as out-of-country medical tourists. The SEHTEQ and Udenz partnership is an important initiative to use technology and innovation to grow patient referrals.”  

Jonathan Edelheit, CEO of Medical Tourism Association, said: “Dental tourism continues to be a strong leader in the medical tourism sector. Strategic partnerships like the one between SEHTEQ and Udenz is an innovative way for two companies to grow in scale faster, while bringing different infrastructure in assets together. Mergers like this is what can help companies scale and be leaders in medical tourism.”

SEHTEQ and Udenz have launched dental and medical tourism packages under the hashtag #smilenolz which is a combination of Emirati Arabic and English meaning “lets go smile”. The campaign will cover new end-to-end smile (dental and cosmetic) medical tourism packages available for Udenz users at a fixed, highly discounted rate. The packages include travel and accommodation in order to make it affordable for more people to have the perfect smile and spread happiness.