Headway

Dandy

Headway

Headway makes money by taking a percentage of the insurance reimbursement for each session facilitated through the platform. When a patient sees a Headway-credentialed therapist and pays their copay, Headway processes the insurance claim and takes a service fee from the reimbursement before paying the therapist.

The model aligns incentives well. Headway only makes money when therapy sessions actually happen, which means they're incentivized to help therapists see more patients and reduce no-shows.

Therapists make more than they would on their own (because Headway's negotiated rates are often better than individual therapists can get), and patients pay only their insurance copay ($0-$50 typically) instead of full out-of-pocket rates.

Scale creates a data and negotiation advantage. With 40,000+ therapists on the platform, Headway can negotiate better reimbursement rates with insurers.

More therapists attract more patients. More patients justify better rates.

The flywheel spins.

Dandy

Vertical SaaS plus manufacturing. Dandy provides dental practices with intraoral scanners (often subsidized or free to eliminate the switching cost), cloud-based software for managing cases, and its own network of digital dental labs that manufacture the final restorations.

Dentists pay per case — each crown, bridge, veneer, or implant restoration is priced individually. The margin comes from manufacturing efficiency: digital workflows are faster, more precise, and require less manual labor than traditional hand-sculpted methods.

As volume grows, Dandy's labs get more efficient and per-unit costs drop. It's the classic razor-and-blades model — give away the scanner, make money on every restoration.

Headway

Andrew Adams and Jake Sussman founded Headway in 2019 after watching people in their lives struggle to access affordable mental healthcare. The problem was specific and structural: most therapists operate as solo practitioners who don't accept insurance.

Not because they don't want to — because the process of getting credentialed with insurance companies, submitting claims, and chasing reimbursements is so bureaucratically painful that most therapists give up and go cash-only.

The result is a two-tier mental healthcare system. People with money pay $150-$300 per session out of pocket.

People without money either can't afford therapy or wait months for the few in-network providers available. Meanwhile, therapists who only accept cash are leaving money on the table — insurance pays reliably once the system works, and the patient pool is vastly larger.

Headway's solution was to build the infrastructure layer that makes insurance billing painless for therapists. They handle credentialing (getting the therapist accepted into insurance networks), claims submission, payment processing, and compliance — all the administrative work that therapists hate.

The therapist shows up, does therapy, and Headway handles everything else.

Dandy

Henry Stott was a repeat entrepreneur who had previously co-founded a tech company in the UK. When he looked at the dental industry, he saw a $15 billion lab market that was shockingly analog.

Here's how it worked: a dentist jams a tray of gooey putty into your mouth, waits for it to harden, mails the physical mold to a dental lab, where a technician hand-sculpts your crown out of ceramic. Turnaround: 2 to 3 weeks.

Error rate: high. Patient experience: miserable.

The technology to do this digitally had existed for years — 3D intraoral scanners, CAD/CAM software, CNC milling machines — but nobody had stitched it into a seamless end-to-end platform for the average dental practice. Stott started Dandy in 2020 to be that platform.

Provide the scanner, build the software, run the lab — and make it so easy that any dentist can switch from analog to digital without changing how they practice.

Headway

Headway grew by solving the supply-side problem first. If you can get enough therapists on the platform and credentialed with insurance, patients will come because affordable therapy is in massive demand.

They recruited therapists with a compelling pitch: "keep doing therapy, we'll handle the business side."

Insurance partnerships were the growth unlock. Headway partnered with major insurance companies (Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare, Anthem) to become an authorized credentialing partner.

This meant Headway could get therapists in-network faster and with less friction than the traditional process.

The mental health destigmatization wave amplified demand. Post-COVID, demand for therapy skyrocketed.

The conversation around mental health became mainstream. Headway was positioned perfectly to absorb that demand by connecting patients with affordable, insurance-covered therapists.

Dandy

Land-and-expand with dental practices. Dandy gives practices the scanner for free or at heavy discount, which eliminates the biggest barrier to switching from analog.

Once a practice starts submitting digital scans, they become recurring revenue — every patient who needs a crown is a Dandy order. Sales team targets mid-size practices (3 to 10 dentists) that are high-volume but haven't invested in digital yet.

Referral programs where existing dentists recommend Dandy to colleagues. Geographic density strategy — build lab capacity in a region, then saturate practices nearby to optimize logistics and turnaround times.

Content marketing educating dentists on why digital is better, faster, and more profitable than analog workflows.

Headway

Therapist retention is a challenge. Solo practitioners are independent by nature, and some leave the platform once they've built a full patient roster through Headway.

The platform needs to continuously demonstrate value beyond initial credentialing to keep therapists from going direct.

Insurance reimbursement rates are notoriously low. Therapists who accept insurance often earn 30-50% less per session than cash-pay rates.

While Headway negotiates better rates than individual therapists typically get, the fundamental economics of insurance-based mental healthcare remain challenging.

Regulatory complexity varies by state. Each state has different licensing requirements, insurance regulations, and telehealth rules.

Expanding to all 50 states means navigating 50 different regulatory frameworks, each with their own credentialing requirements and compliance standards.

Dandy

Dental practices are notoriously resistant to change — many dentists have used the same lab for 20 years and switching feels risky. The scanner hardware is expensive to subsidize at scale, creating a capital-intensive land grab.

Quality control across distributed manufacturing is hard — a crown that doesn't fit means a remake, an unhappy patient, and a dentist who might switch back to their old lab. Competition from established digital players like Align Technology and legacy lab companies investing in their own digital capabilities.

The dental industry is fragmented — 200,000+ practices in the US, mostly small businesses, which means enterprise-style sales don't work. Each practice is its own decision maker with its own habits.

Headway

Headway Provider Platform — the core system where therapists manage their practice: scheduling, credentialing, claims submission, payment tracking, and patient communications. Headway Patient Matching — a directory and matching service that connects patients with in-network therapists based on insurance, location, specialty, and availability.

Insurance Credentialing Service — Headway handles the months-long process of getting therapists accepted into insurance networks, reducing what typically takes 6-12 months to weeks. Claims and Billing Engine — automated insurance claims submission and tracking that eliminates the paperwork therapists dread.

Practice Management Tools — scheduling, intake forms, session notes, and telehealth capabilities integrated into one platform.

Dandy

Dandy Scanner — provided to dental practices, captures a full 3D digital impression of the patient's mouth in minutes. No more putty molds.

Cloud-based case management platform where dentists submit scans, approve designs, and track orders. AI-powered restoration design that generates crown and veneer designs automatically from 3D scans, reducing turnaround from weeks to days.

Digital dental lab network with automated CNC milling and 3D printing for manufacturing restorations. Shade matching technology using AI to color-match restorations to surrounding teeth.

Integration with practice management software so cases flow seamlessly from scan to delivery.

Headway

Andreessen Horowitz led the Series C at a $2.3 billion valuation. Accel and Thrive Capital invested in earlier rounds.

GV (Google Ventures) and Spark Capital also participated. The company has raised approximately $226 million total.

Dandy

Investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, IVP, DST Global, and IA Ventures. Series C in 2023 valued the company at approximately $1.8 billion.