BeCertain, a dental diagnostics startup, has raised £1.7 million in a pre-seed round led by Sure Valley Ventures and supported by Innovate UK's Investor Partnership Growth Catalyst programme. A spinout from King's College London and the University of Surrey, founded by experts in machine learning and dentistry, BeCertain has developed an AI software assistant designed to support clinicians in their workflow, with the first use case in assisting the interpretation of 2D intraoral X-rays.
Around 20 million X-rays are taken annually in the United Kingdom, and clinicians face intense pressure to make fast, accurate decisions. Dental diagnosis is highly inconsistent: the same X-ray can yield different interpretations from different clinicians, and with diagnostic error rates exceeding 50%, over half of diseases can go undetected. That can harm patients, erode trust, delay early treatment, and increase litigation risk and revenue loss for practices. Addressing those needs in dental practice, BeCertain improves diagnostic reliability, protects patient data and increases operational efficiency.
The AI-assisted diagnosis system detects a broad range of dental conditions from X-rays, using proprietary uncertainty-aware AI to spot subtle pathologies before they evolve into major concerns. Calibrated confidence levels help dentists understand how certain the system is in each assessment, which matters particularly in complex or unclear cases. Conditions identified include tooth decay, bone loss, infections and restoration defects, and the software integrates easily with dental imaging systems that dentists already use. Data privacy is also central to its design.
The technology was developed from research led by Dr Yunpeng Li and Professor Owen Addison. Li is a Reader in AI & Digital Oral Health at the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences at King's College London and CEO and co-founder of BeCertain, and was previously a faculty member at the University of Surrey. Addison is a Professor of Oral Rehabilitation and Head of Centre for Oral, Clinical & Translational Sciences at King's College London, an Honorary NHS Consultant in Restorative Dentistry, and BeCertain's Chief Medical Officer. The initial project was funded by a £1.75 million National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) i4i Product Development Award.
In 2025, BeCertain joined King's MedTech Venture Builder programme hosted by the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (LIHE), a 12-month structured programme that aims to accelerate the commercial and clinical translation of technologies into investment-ready ventures.
Every missed diagnosis represents a missed opportunity for a patients. The hard part in clinical AI isn't detection, it's trust. That's what we've built: a system that tells clinicians how confident it is rather than issuing a black-box verdict, that keeps patient data protected, and that we evaluate at scale. Our system helps identify a broad range of common conditions, including tooth decay, bone loss, infections, and restoration defects. It integrates easily with dental imaging systems that dentists already use.
BeCertain is about making dentistry work better for both clinicians and patients by using regulated, trustworthy AI to give clinicians confidence, consistency, and more time for patient care.
BeCertain is building the trust layer for dental AI, with technology trained on NHS-grade data that brings accuracy and consistency to every diagnosis. What stood out was the founders' rare combination of world-class research and frontline clinical expertise, and their drive to commercialise this technology to transform everyday dental practice.
The greatest impact of AI in healthcare will come not from systems that operate with the highest degree of autonomy, but from those that clinicians can trust with confidence. BeCertain was designed with that principle at its core. Its journey from research at the University of Surrey to commercial development at King's College London demonstrates the value of collaboration across institutions, with complementary innovation ecosystems helping promising research progress towards clinical and commercial impact. We are proud that Innovate Surrey Ltd has played a role in supporting that journey, from protecting intellectual property to enabling the creation of a spin-out with the potential to improve patient care.
