While medical technology has advanced rapidly, much of the dental insurance industry still runs on systems built decades ago—fraught with paper-based processes, fragmented data, and slow claims cycles. For patients and providers alike, these inefficiencies translate into delays, confusion, and higher costs.
Enter LightSpun, an AI-native platform built to modernize and automate the complex, manual workflows that plague dental insurance administration. Fresh off a $13 million Series A round led by Brewer Lane Ventures—with participation from Virtue, Cambrian, and Industry Ventures—LightSpun is gaining traction across the U.S., now powering over 50% of dental providers nationwide through its claims, credentialing, and benefits management tools.
To understand how this startup is reimagining the infrastructure of dental insurance, we spoke with co-founders Shaju Puthussery and Deepak Ramaswamy. In this conversation, they discuss the origin of LightSpun, the deep-rooted inefficiencies they’re tackling, and how their AI-first, dental-first approach is setting a new standard in healthcare administration.
Dentistry Today: What was the original spark or insight that led you both to co-found LightSpun? Was there a moment when the opportunity in dental insurance became crystal clear?
Shaju, co-founder of LightSpun: I have spent over 20 years in dental insurance and have seen the same issues repeat: outdated systems that require massive IT resources for even small changes, long delays in launching new benefit plans, low claim adjudication rates, and paper claims still being entered by hand. I knew the industry needed a better foundation.
Deepak, co-founder of LightSpun: I have years of experience building AI for healthcare and dental. I saw a chance to apply AI automation to exactly these problems. Together, we realized that by modernizing the infrastructure, we could help insurance payers and dental service organizations operate far more efficiently and deliver the best patient outcomes at the lowest possible cost. This shared vision of ours became 32Health, now LightSpun.
DT: Dental insurance is one of the last strongholds of paper-based processes. What surprised you most as you began building technology for this space?
Shaju: The biggest surprise was the extent of duplication and manual work that existed during the whole end-to-end claims process: from receiving a claim to paying a claim and adhering to all the regulatory compliance. For example, the same provider would be credentialed multiple times across different payers, and the same data would be keyed in again and again. We also saw that paper claims were still being manually entered into systems, and administrative teams were spending countless hours logging into 50 different state portals to check credentialing, DEA registrations, licenses, sanctions, and many other verification checks. The industry wasn’t short on information; it was short on interoperability and automation. That insight reinforced our belief that modern AI-first technology infrastructure could make a huge difference.
DT: What were the biggest technical or strategic challenges you faced early on—whether around AI, integrations, or client adoption—and how did you overcome them?
Deepak: One of the biggest challenges was trust and adoption. Payers were accustomed to legacy systems and resistant to change, which made the sales cycle long as they needed proof that automation could meet or exceed human accuracy. We overcame this by building a team with deep dental industry experience who spoke the clients’ language, alongside an AI team to deliver real innovation. Pilot programs allowed us to demonstrate tangible results and show how automation could reduce costs for payers. Another challenge was understanding the complexity of dental plans and claim rules, as well as training AI models to learn these rules so they could be accurately configured in our system. On the technical side, integrating with legacy systems and introducing APIs was complex but essential.
DT: Your platform now supports over 50% of dental providers nationwide. What have you learned about scaling in such a fragmented and regulated market?
Shaju: Scaling in dental insurance is less about moving fast and more about building reliability and trust. Every process in healthcare must be accurate, auditable, and compliant. From the start, we invested in security, compliance, and data quality, including achieving SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance, and meeting standards as an NCQA Verification Organization. Those foundations may feel like they slow you down initially, but they actually accelerate adoption once you’re working with large payers and DSOs.
Today, we manage over 175K providers on our credentialing platform, which is part of our broader Provider Network Management module. Demonstrating clear value is critical in a fragmented market. In one client demonstration, where we credentialed 500 providers in under five minutes, clients could immediately calculate the time saved, knowing that manual credentialing takes hours per provider. Beyond credentialing, our Claims Administration module has brought tangible value to payers and indirectly to providers, who can now generate revenue faster because claims are processed and adjudicated more efficiently. Payers can directly see the cost savings and efficiency gains, while DSOs benefit from incremental revenue opportunities as providers are onboarded more quickly. By combining speed, accuracy, and measurable outcomes across multiple modules, we’ve been able to scale adoption and deliver real impact across the dental ecosystem.
DT: LightSpun is automating tasks that have historically required large teams. How do you balance efficiency gains with concerns about transparency, trust, and control for clients?
Deepak: We design automation to be assistive, not opaque. Clients always have visibility into what the AI is doing, with the ability to review, audit, and override. Our systems are built with a human-in-the-loop approach, using confidence scores to determine when a task can be fully automated and when human review is needed. We also configure the AI based on client preferences and train machine learning models on their data to ensure accuracy and alignment with their workflows.
We run pilot programs during our deployment to build immediate trust and demonstrate value, and we are transparent about the strengths and limitations of AI. Automation is framed as a tool to make our clients’ teams more productive, not replace them. Ultimately, we see our clients as partners, and our goal is to help them improve profitability, reduce operational waste, and even unlock incremental top-line revenue. By combining transparency, configurability, and human oversight, we give clients efficiency without sacrificing control or trust.
DT: With the Series A raise, you’re growing both engineering and product teams. What kinds of talent are you looking for, and how do you maintain culture as you scale?
Shaju: We’re looking for people who thrive in ambiguity and are excited to build in a fast-moving startup environment. That includes top AI engineers, data scientists, and software engineers who enjoy solving complex, messy problems in regulated industries. On the product side, we want leaders who can design experiences that are both user-friendly and compliant. We seek individuals who are passionate about improving the healthcare experience for patients, providers, and payers, and who care deeply about reducing waste in the system. We look for folks who can adapt to changes quickly and embrace the best that AI has to offer to be fast learners of the domain.
As we scale, we’re intentional about reinforcing our culture so every new hire feels like they’re helping to build the next-generation healthcare platform, not just filling a role. Our core values guide us: empathy, transparency, velocity, ownership, curiosity, and quality. These values shape how we collaborate, make decisions, and innovate, ensuring that as we grow, we maintain the same energy, focus, and accountability that got us here.
DT: How did the relationships with investors like Brewer Lane and Virtue come together, and what made them the right partners for this stage of LightSpun’s journey?
Deepak: We wanted investors who understood both healthcare and technology, and who were genuinely passionate about solving the systemic problems in healthcare. Brewer Lane and Virtue stood out because they bring deep experience in healthcare, insurance, fintech, and enterprise technology, and they share our long-term vision for transforming the industry. For us, it’s not just about the capital—they are strategic partners who help us think through growth, navigate complexity, and scale effectively. That alignment of mission and expertise made them the right partners for this stage of LightSpun’s journey.
DT: Dental tech is having a breakout year in VC interest. How do you see LightSpun’s approach to AI standing out from other startups in this increasingly competitive space?
Shaju: Many startups are trying to apply generic AI to industry problems, but they lack the deep domain expertise to truly solve them. This is where LightSpun stands out. Our approach isn’t just about using AI; it’s about being both dental-first and AI-first. We started with the real-world, operational problems of dental insurance administration. This means our technology is built from the ground up to handle the specific complexities to apply AI to credentialing, claims processing, provider management, payments, customer support, reporting, and compliance. We understand the nuances of this highly regulated market, and our platform reflects that depth of knowledge. We aren’t just another tech company trying to break into dental; we’re a dental company using technology to solve decades-old problems.
For us, AI isn’t a buzzword—it’s the core engine that powers our solution. We use it to automate and optimize every step of the process, from onboarding dentists to payments. This focus on building a native AI solution allows us to deliver measurable, tangible value for our clients, rather than just incremental improvements.
Ultimately, this combination gives us a unique competitive advantage. Investors see our ability to scale in a complex market, and our clients see a partner who delivers real-world impact. We’re not chasing hype; we’re creating better dental insurance administration that drives results.
DT: Aside from claims and provider onboarding, what are the next major inefficiencies in dental insurance or administration that you’re eager to tackle?
Deepak: We are focused on improving patient and provider experiences using AI. Our goal is to humanize the AI experience at every touchpoint between providers, members, and payers—so automation doesn’t just replace work, but makes the entire process more transparent, intuitive, and supportive.
We’re exploring several initiatives that leverage generative AI to augment these experiences. For example, helping providers quickly resolve questions about claims or credentialing, enabling members to better understand their benefits in plain language, and giving payers intelligent tools to reduce administrative back-and-forth. These capabilities tie directly into our broader platform modules—whether it’s benefit administration, billing, contact center support, or predictive insights.
By combining automation with human-centered design, we aim to reduce friction, cut down administrative waste, and ultimately create a smoother, more empathetic healthcare experience for everyone involved.
DT: Looking ahead to 2026, how do you envision LightSpun’s role evolving—not just as a product, but as a company driving systemic change in healthcare infrastructure?
Shaju: By 2026, we see LightSpun as the leading platform for dental insurance administration. On the product side, we will continue expanding AI-driven capabilities across the platform: deploying AI agents for sales, enhancing plan management and design, extending AI agents to all workflows, integrating fintech solutions, and improving self-service experiences for members and providers. We’ll also keep refining our algorithms with more training data to increase accuracy and predictive power.
As LightSpun continues to scale—both in technology and impact—it’s clear the company is positioning itself as more than just a software provider. It’s becoming a foundational layer for a more efficient, transparent, and patient-centric dental insurance ecosystem.
From automating provider onboarding in minutes to enabling 90%+ claims to be adjudicated without human input, the platform is proving that intelligent automation can coexist with empathy, oversight, and control. With their Series A funding now secured, Puthussery and Ramaswamy are focused on building out new AI capabilities, expanding partnerships, and further embedding LightSpun into the core operations of insurers and DSOs nationwide.
In a fragmented, high-friction space long overdue for transformation, LightSpun’s trajectory is a compelling case study in how deep industry knowledge, paired with advanced technology, can drive systemic change from the inside out.
