SmileDirectClub was worth $8.9B and shut with 2M customers mid-treatment

SmileDirectClub sold clear teeth aligners by mail: customers made their own impressions at home or at mall kiosks, and the company shipped aligners without regular in-person dentist visits. The model promised a fraction of the price of traditional braces and grew fast, reaching a $8.9 billion valuation when it went public in 2019. Millions of customers signed up and its kiosks appeared inside retailers across the US.

The model carried a structural problem: dentists and regulators challenged the safety of orthodontics without in-person supervision, and the company spent heavily on advertising to keep acquiring customers. SmileDirectClub never built a reliable profit — it lost $86.4 million in 2022 alone — while its debt grew to roughly $900 million. In late September 2023 it filed for Chapter 11 protection.

On December 8, 2023, the company announced it was ceasing operations entirely. More than two million customers were left mid-treatment: the Lifetime Smile Guarantee was no longer honored, and customers who had financed treatment through Smile Pay were told to keep making their payments. The stock, once a Nasdaq unicorn, was delisted and the remaining assets were sold off in bankruptcy.