Chenglian Technology Files IPO Prospectus: Pioneering Full-Process Digital Transformation in the Global Dental Prosthetics Industry
Geopolitical conflicts, wars, and the pandemic... 2022 delivered significant shocks to industries across the board. A “capital winter” became a tacit consensus, prompting many companies to adopt a strategy of retreating in order to advance as they struggled to survive the harsh conditions.
Yet, also in 2022, a company in Nanjing Software Valley’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation City bucked the trend with across-the-board growth—
Completed two rounds of financing within one year, raising a total of nearly RMB 380 million; expanded its workforce by 500 employees against the market trend; signed agreements to establish 260 dental cloud factories across 27 countries, providing high-quality denture products to 30 million users worldwide; recognized as a “Jiangsu Province Service-Oriented Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprise” and a “Jiangsu Province Specialized, Refined, Differential, and Innovative SME”; its self-developed “SLM Equipment for Dental Applications” was selected as one of Jiangsu Province’s First Set (Batch) of Major Technical Equipment, and its “R&D of Fully Automated Cloud-Intelligent SLM High-End Equipment” project was included in the Jiangsu Province Industrial and Information Technology Industry Transformation and Upgrading Special Fund Program; awarded Second Prize in the “Win in Nanjing · Entrepreneurship in Jinling” Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition...
This miracle-creating enterprise isNanjing Chamlion Laser Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Chamlion Tech”).
Since its establishment in 2017, Chamlion Technology has grown from a humble office in the Nanjing Software Valley Innovation and Entrepreneurship City. The company strategically upgraded its brand from “Chamlion Laser” to “Chamlion Technology,” evolving from a manufacturer of dental 3D printing equipment into a global digital service platform covering the entire dental workflow. How did Chamlion Technology achieve such rapid growth in just five years? What considerations drove the name change? How did it surge forward against market headwinds? And what are its future strategic plans? To answer these questions, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Wang Zhitao, CEO of Chamlion Technology, seeking insights into the company’s journey.
Chamlion Technology CEO, Wang Zhitao
Chamlion Technology is a national high-tech enterprise incubated by the Additive Manufacturing Institute of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, specializing in the full-process digitalization of dental care and providing one-stop 3D printing digital solutions for dentistry.
The company has successively developed proprietary dental-specific 3D printers, intelligent denture design software, and automated post-processing equipment, achieving digitalization across the entire dental industry chain. Leveraging “Internet + 3D Printing,” the company has established large-scale distributed cloud factories for denture manufacturing worldwide, integrating the data–design–manufacturing workflow to build a comprehensive digital service platform for the entire dental process.
Chamlion Technology
From “Chamlion Laser” to “Chamlion Technology,” Nanjing Chamlion’s brand change occurred in 2021.
From its inception until 2021, Chamlion Laser dedicated itself to technological R&D, successively developing powder-bed fusion 3D printers specifically for dental-grade pure titanium and cobalt-chromium alloys. By providing one-stop metal 3D printing solutions, the company has enhanced the processing efficiency of dental laboratories.
Selected Hardware Products of Chamlion Technology
According to data provided by Chamlion Technology, the yield rate of products printed using its proprietary 3D printing process can reach 99.2%. Thanks to its exceptional cost-effectiveness, Chamlion’s dental 3D printing equipment not only leads the industry in domestic shipment volume but also outcompetes imported brands internationally. Its products are exported to the United States, Canada, Italy, South Korea, the Philippines, and other countries, establishing Chamlion as a prominent representative of China’s dental 3D printing industry.
In May 2021, Nanjing Chamlion fully transitioned to a cloud factory model, strategically evolving from a pure hardware supplier into a comprehensive digital service platform for the entire dental workflow. Discussing the rationale behind this shift, Wang Zhitao stated that while domestically produced 3D printing hardware has become increasingly mature in recent years, software development has remained relatively weak. CAD/CAM software specifically designed for dental 3D printing is nearly monopolized by foreign companies.
Consequently, Nanjing Chamlion Laser Technology Co., Ltd. has dedicated itself to intensive research and development, successfully creating a suite of specialized 3D printing software solutions for dentistry. These include control software for 3D printing equipment, data processing software, and intelligent design software for dental prostheses, thereby achieving the domestication of dental 3D printing software in China. Notably, the intelligent dental prosthesis design software leverages artificial intelligence and big data, employing graphic recognition algorithms to significantly enhance design efficiency.
As Chamlion Technology advances deeply in the dental field, it has recognized that “the digitalization level of upstream dental products largely determines the ceiling of downstream clinical service quality. Upstream digitalization enables the provision of customized precision medicine solutions and scientific modeling for consumers, thereby improving doctors’ diagnostic and treatment efficiency as well as patients’ treatment experience and outcomes.”
Thus, in May 2021, the company fully transitioned to a cloud factory model, officially launching its comprehensive digital services for the entire dental workflow.
Beyond operating in the high-growth sector of digital dentistry, Chamlion Technology’s rapid development is driven more significantly by its high-caliber team, products, and solutions.
First, regarding the team. Wang Zhitao stated that Chamlion Technology's advantages are reflected in four aspects.First, possessing material research and development capabilities,Direct mastery of the foundational capabilities in R&D and manufacturing technologies for upstream raw materials;Second, it possesses the capability for localized software development and commercial application.including a global cloud-based order platform system, an intelligent production scheduling system, and dental industrial CAD design software;Third, it possesses the R&D and manufacturing capabilities for dental 3D printers; fourth, it has established the capacity for coordinated global operations.
Currently, many domestic dental enterprises possess only one or two of these capabilities, making it difficult to integrate all four. Especially at the global operational level, maintaining organizational vitality and efficiency has become the greatest challenge for many companies expanding globally. To address this pain point, Chamlion Technology has recruited numerous operations management professionals from large multinational corporations, and its current operations team consists entirely of local Chinese talent. The company provides materials, technology, and automated production lines, while core data and software are processed in data centers located in China. Local clients supply general laborers. Chamlion Technology leverages integrated technology to help clients achieve intelligent manufacturing for the majority of production processes.
In terms of product structure, Chamlion Technology does not focus on the digital transformation and upgrading of individual elements, but ratherEmphasize full-process digitalization.Chamlion Technology drives hardware innovation through R&D in materials and software, ultimately achieving digital manufacturing across the entire industry chain to empower denture processing.
Taking the Chamlion Cloud Platform as an example, it transforms traditional labor-intensive denture fabrication into a systematic, streamlined, and standardized workflow through AI.
Specifically, the Chamlion Cloud Platform serves as the central hub, integrating hardware, software, design teams, and other elements to form a distributed cloud manufacturing factory. Users submit task requirements via the cloud platform, where digital design teams conduct industrial CAD design and data processing online. The platform’s intelligent production scheduling system then allocates printing tasks to the optimal cloud factory for the fabrication of semi-finished or finished products, which are ultimately delivered to users through logistics systems. Taking the printing of semi-finished products as an example, the entire process—from receiving the request on the cloud platform to shipping the product—takes only 24 hours, achieving full-process digitization and intelligence in denture processing.
Chamlion Full-Process Digital Cloud Factory
Wang Zhitao told VCBeat, “Any dental lab worldwide can upload data to the Chamlion Cloud to place an order. Subsequent steps—including CAD design, data processing, printing, and digital manufacturing—are completed automatically. Moreover, all cloud factories globally are operated directly by Chamlion. We generate revenue by providing digital manufacturing capabilities to dental laboratories around the world and charging product service fees based on orders.”
The innovation of the Chamlion Cloud Platform lies not only in networking all metal printers to create a cloud-based factory for denture printing, which significantly reduces end-customer expenses while ensuring product quality and production efficiency—thereby achieving cost reduction and efficiency gains—but also in unlocking greater commercial growth potential, charting a course for the evolution of 3D printing from mere equipment sales to cloud-based services.
Such innovation is also reflected in materials. Nanjing Chamlion Laser Technology Co., Ltd. is developing titanium-zirconium alloy materials for 3D-printed dental implants. This material not only exhibits excellent mechanical and biological properties but is also non-magnetic, causing virtually no interference with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), making it an ideal material for dental fabrication.
To date, Chamlion Technology has expanded into 27 countries and regions, including the United States, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Vietnam, and Dubai, establishing over 260 cloud factories. It produces 80,000 dental crowns and 8,000 removable partial denture frameworks daily, serving 30 million users worldwide.
Driven by the confluence of multiple factors, including post-pandemic global market value recovery, the surge in digital dentistry, and accelerating global aging, the oral healthcare industry is poised for a new wave of explosive growth.
“In the future, 70% of Chamlion Technology’s business will be overseas.” Wang Zhitao told VCBeat that in 2023, the company would deepen its multi-point overseas presence, advance the development of localized services, and gradually implement its international strategic layout. It aims to build an ecosystem of partnerships with global dental laboratory enterprises to jointly promote industry consolidation and digital transformation.
Meanwhile, Chamlion Technology will continue to strengthen its efforts in raw materials, software, and equipment, deepening innovation to navigate different industry cycles. In doing so, it aims to provide a “Chinese solution” for the digitalization of global dentistry.