What we talked about
Shiva Kumar is the Co-Founder & CTO of Dentulu, a health-tech platform unifying the fragmented world of dentistry into a single ecosystem for providers, offices, patients, and suppliers. In this conversation, Shiva shares how Dentulu evolved from mobile dentistry to a comprehensive telehealth platform accelerated by COVID, and why meticulous, millimeter-level clinical workflows demand a very different approach than “move fast and break things.”
Show notes
Shiva Kumar has spent more than two decades building software, but the discipline that telehealth demands is unlike anything he encountered in conventional SaaS. At Dentulu, he is unifying a famously fragmented industry: dentistry runs on a patchwork of imaging systems, practice management tools, insurance backends, and supplier relationships, and stitching them into one workflow is as much regulatory and clinical work as it is engineering. Shiva’s two-decade career across India, the UAE, and the U.S. taught him to lead distributed teams long before remote work was fashionable, and that experience now underpins how Dentulu scales a platform where a millimeter of error has clinical consequences.
What we covered
- The shift from mobile dentistry to a telehealth platform: COVID accelerated the move from “we go to you” to “we connect providers and patients remotely,” and Dentulu had to rebuild its product around clinician-grade reliability rather than convenience.
- Why dental tech cannot adopt a “move fast and break things” posture: the workflows are millimeter-precise, the regulatory environment is unforgiving, and a bad release puts patients at risk in ways consumer software never does.
- Partnership with Viome and the broader thesis that dental health is a window into systemic health, Shiva sees the long-term opportunity as connecting oral microbiome data to whole-body diagnostics rather than treating dentistry as a standalone vertical.
- Leading global engineering teams: the lessons from running CA Infotech for over a decade transferred directly into building Dentulu’s distributed team across geographies, with culture and clarity of ownership as the load-bearing investments.
- AI for development: Shiva’s UN talk framed AI as an access multiplier in healthcare, not a replacement for clinicians. Dentulu uses AI to triage and to surface what providers should look at, not to make the call itself.
- Advice to founders entering regulated health tech: do not underestimate the years it takes to earn provider trust, and do not let the velocity of consumer software trick you into shipping clinical features before they are ready.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:00) Welcome back to the Prevetted podcast where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today we are joined by Shiva Kumar. He’s a co-founder and CTO of Denlulu. Denlulu is a groundbreaking health tech company that’s redefining dental care through telehealth and AI driven solutions. He has more than two decades of experience in software development, SaaS and global team building.
Shiva Kumar has ⁓ led scalable platforms, spoken at the UN, on AI for development, and driven partnerships
Shiva Kumar (00:34) you
Federico Ramallo (00:35) that are shaping the future of digital healthcare. Shiva, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.
Shiva Kumar (00:41) Pleasure. Pleasure is mine, Federico. Thank you for that was a good introduction. Hopefully I can contribute to your good cause.
Federico Ramallo (00:51) Great, great, I’m happy to have you here. So tell us a little bit about Denlulu, what are you building?
Shiva Kumar (01:00) Sure. Dentrulu is a very specific to dentistry and it’s largely to tell it in very simple term, it’s an ecosystem. So dentistry is very fragmented and providers and dental offices, get drained out due to this fragmentation, even patients. So patients also include in that. So me and my co-founder and CEO Dr. Raj Shakaamian,
We kind of like came up with the idea of what about, why don’t we bring them all together into one ecosystem? So he is like a third generation dentist, his family is entirely dentists. I’m very thankful to have him as a partner and he is my mentor in dentistry because I had zero knowledge about dentistry, but he kind of like mentored me to understand dentistry and in the last seven years I…
I really understood how the industry works and building the solution for that specific vertical was a real challenge. And in every place he helped me navigate and I did contribute to, I did my best to help him with his vision, with our combined vision. And we have DentroLoop today, which is like a ecosystem bringing providers, patients, dental offices, dental supply companies.
anything you talk about dentistry is in the platform as connected one ecosystem.
Federico Ramallo (02:29) wow, very interesting we get used to as software engineers I’m a software engineer as well so I’m relating to that we get used to moving zeros to one and things like that everything is so behind the screen but then there are industries that require physical things and then this is one of them
Shiva Kumar (02:43) Good.
Yeah.
Correct.
Yeah. Yeah. So in dentistry, you know, when we started, everybody asked us like, how dentistry is all about pulling your teeth? Like, you know, you have to do it from your office. What is there to do it from virtually? So that’s the barrier we broke. And ⁓ we have brought a lot of these services. We showed that a lot of these services, dental services can be done from virtually like post-op checks or
you know, doing a sleep apnea case study or sleep apnea treatment, salivary diagnostics. So salivary diagnostics is one of the key points because it is directly related to systemic health. So we kind of like, you know, brought the standard. So we have setting a standard on why salivary testing is required in every other office and why every other patient reviewed it. So we did our part in bringing them all together and into one ecosystem.
Federico Ramallo (03:52) Interesting.
Shiva Kumar (03:52) ⁓
And the major part was like the technology, how we actually enabled. So as you said, you know, working from the back, when nobody sees that, even my co-founder jokingly say, you know, he does all the job and I get the credit. So basically, you know, that’s kind of the kind of teamwork we did. We worked.
Federico Ramallo (04:08) hahahaha
Shiva Kumar (04:17) tiring on building the solution, the solution design. We had an excellent team behind us. And I personally worked on a lot of these solutions, talking to these dentists. Dentists are very, very, very, very, very meticulous. Their business is within millimeters. So that’s how they see it. They’re very attentive to details. then any one small mistake would be very expensive. So that’s the kind of attention they had us to put into the software.
That’s where my learning process also went from zero to 100 is what I should say. So the dentistry is between millimeters. So building a software within the millimeters, think about it. How much difficulties we would have faced and how much challenges we have done, we have navigated through. And this is where are. Tim Choulu is here at the top.
Federico Ramallo (05:07) Right, right. As a software engineer, I work on multiple startups, big corporations and things like that and mostly in startups you learn these move fast, break things, right? But then I work on HIPAA compliant projects and then I realize, well, that doesn’t apply, right? Because if you make a mistake on the software, there’s a patient on the other side, right?
Shiva Kumar (05:22) Yeah. ⁓
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (05:33) that is going to get affected, right?
Shiva Kumar (05:34) ⁓
Yeah, software compliance, HIPAA compliance, everything comes into play. you know, we used to say, we used to make jokes in the second year or third year, we used to make two weeks projects. We used to call, people used to say, what is the two weeks? You know, we say like two weeks to the future, but nothing happens in two weeks. And ⁓ we used to jokingly say,
Federico Ramallo (05:39) Right
Shiva Kumar (05:58) which is that next feature coming up in two weeks to break. So we realized, you know, that’s not how things work. needs its actual time to, you know, to put the attention, the care behind it and make sure it keeps the patient record safe, the patient feels safe, the providers feel safe to use it. So we had to go through a lot of testing and development.
I don’t have to explain all the time, but you understand what I mean.
Federico Ramallo (06:26) Yes, The actual testing
and the publication takes longer than the actual coding, right? ⁓ Yeah, yeah. And it’s something as a software engineer, I usually didn’t take that into account, right? ⁓ Because when you’re in a big team, right, you’re a little clog in the big machine, right?
Shiva Kumar (06:33) Yes, exactly.
Okay.
Good.
Federico Ramallo (06:50) For
me, Dan was like, well, it’s working on staging server, right? After that, I don’t know, right? So ⁓ yeah, when you work on the startups and you own the whole workflow, then you start learning about all those other steps, right?
Shiva Kumar (06:56) in the world.
doing.
Right. have to go through, every feature has to be discussed, every feature has to be meticulously thought through, who’s going to get affected, who’s going to get impacted, and who’s going to get benefited. What problem actually does solve it? And then once we code it, then we do a lot of of of testing. And then the real challenge comes when we start thinking about scenarios.
There are even scenarios like, know, have seen some jokes, you know, there’s like a box with different, I saw a reel where you have like different folds in the box and then the client picks up a cube and puts it into a circle. The client picks up a triangle and puts it into a circle, right? But actually you see there is a space for that. They don’t put it inside that. So it looks like it’s working, but only when you actually give it to someone in real time.
Then you start understanding, you might have worked like 30 different scenarios, but once you give it to someone, they will come up with another 30 different scenarios to fix the software. So it is a lot of data and lot of testing, giving it to them, putting it in the real world and having them try it, practice it. Because, know, general businesses, don’t want to, any business for that sake, they don’t have time. They’re very busy, you know, getting a general appointment is very difficult in the US.
So giving, making them understand like what important role it plays in their business and having them adapt to this ecosystem gives they have to train and they have to understand, okay, how soon it could be done. So we have to make them understand. have to get them adapted to the system, get their confidence and then they start using the system. So that is a real challenge. So we, we always have that challenge even. mean, I think we will continue to have that because
Businesses always see that business doesn’t stop because they introduced a new system. So that challenge is going to be there, but it’s all how you actually solve this problem, how quickly you solve it through the process. And obviously we have developed such process where we solve these problems in real time.
Federico Ramallo (09:13) Right.
So, know, telehealth has been more prominent since COVID, right, in the pandemic. How did you guys implement the telehealth on the dental industry?
Shiva Kumar (09:23) Yeah, that was the great challenge because see Dentrula started as a mobile dentistry company. So we were going to patients homes, were doing, you know, in LA, we were going to patients homes. We were doing it in the Bay Area and we were trying it in few places to see how kids from there. But as soon as COVID hit everything kind of like really changed. The mobile dentistry did not, you know, did not actually see its
what I would say is like it’s raised rather than the terrier had started to see its face. That’s where when we completely changed our software, we raised about like 3.5 to $4 million in funding and apart from, know, me and Mike, we invested several million dollars into the company plus our sweat equity. we kind of, that’s where we actually taken into completely changing our software into
a telehealth platform. as I ⁓ said ⁓ earlier, the industry is so fragmented. So we started identifying what are those services which can be done from remote locations. Let’s say we call it as post-op checks. So if a patient is getting an implant or they get a root canal, and they may have to come back into the office.
And you know how much time it takes to get an appointment, come back for the visit. The patient has to take time. They have to take time off the work, come and meet the doctor. So we have a device called Mouthcam. So it’s something like this. So we give this to, this is like an educational device. And then doctors can actually send this camera. like 50 bucks. They can send this with the patient. And then the patients can actually take pictures. As soon as they take pictures,
it goes into the patient’s shop. And then the doctor can review it and tell the patient that you don’t have to come in, or you have to come in. So this is one of the solutions how we made it easy for the providers to be post-operative checkups. And then from there, we kept evolving into different solutions like salivary diagnostics. We saw that the salivary diagnostics can be used for system, which is connected to systemic health.
like diabetes, stroke, ⁓ heart attack, cancer, and so there are so many different diseases connected to this. Everything starts from your mouth. So we identified that. We worked with one of the nation’s large lab, oral DNA, and we partnered with them. Now we recently partnered with Biom also for cancer detection. So we guys kind of brought this all together into our system. And then we also see the doctors were having difficulty
connecting with their patients, communicating with their patients. And they also wanted like an app for their offices. So we brought all these together into one single platform. We started bringing very, very massive view where we were about like 120 people working day and night on code and testing and building into these in futures. So yeah, that’s how we came into cloud.
Federico Ramallo (12:34) Interesting, yeah, I mean we’re getting to the point where the technology for scanning is much cheaper so it’s better to just give it to a patient and then avoiding the time and trouble for the diagnostics. I used to remember the braces, that they require adjustments.
Shiva Kumar (12:47) Okay. Exactly. Good.
Federico Ramallo (12:58) very often and now they are out adjusted so they can set it up and it’s more automatic ⁓ so for the follow-ups I can see how this type of application would be beneficial
Shiva Kumar (12:58) Right.
Yeah.
Right, right,
right. And today, like, you know, there are like clear aligners. So you can just take an impression from home, send the impression back to the room. was we did we can make the know, the trace, send it back to the patient, then they just have a free for 12 months and then they read it. Just like our smile directed. So we do we do partials. So let’s say if one of you do this missing, we can make like a
prosthetics for your single teeth alone. So there is a process for that. So we work at least like five labs, five huge labs in the US where we’re doing this. So they can simply send their impressions. We pass it on to the doctor. The doctor has to verify whether the patient is eligible to take that. They go through their conditions, ⁓ oral health. They ask for their health history. And then finally, they
the sign of the case. And then we get that device design and then send it to the patient. So that’s one of it.
Federico Ramallo (14:13) right, interesting that you can do that all remotely now
Shiva Kumar (14:13) Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, that’s where dentistry is very fragmented. But you know, there a lot of services which can be done remotely with that’s what actually is happening now. And the one of the main things I haven’t really spoken about is sleep app. Yeah. How many people, there’s about like 74 million people affected in the US every year. And that’s a huge area, like they put sleep app machines and that kind of, know, there’s like large machines and you have to sleep all night and it’s very comfortable.
But we are the first company who designed the whole software, which actually automates this flow. It helps our doctors. It helps our lab. It helps our patients. Everybody to use our platform to do this process. It has to be done in the dental office, but our software can be used to do everything virtually. So Sleep Apnea, they have, and it was also covered by insurance.
We design the device and send to the patient. And then everything happens virtually. And insurance pay somewhere from $4,000 to $6,000 for this device. So that’s one of the major offerings we are doing.
Federico Ramallo (15:31) the Zip-up device. Yes.
Shiva Kumar (15:34) Exactly. So CPAP
device has been, it is being like, we don’t have, they don’t have to use CPAP device. It’s like a, it’s like a tray, two trays they put into their mouths. It’s like, we call it as like, what do call it? Mandibular device. And this device is designed by the dentist and based on their impressions. And then patient has to just wear it in their mouth. They put it in their mouth, just like you’re a liner and you bite it and that’s it.
Just bring your jaw a little forward like this and then that’s it. You will get a full night of peaceful sleep.
Federico Ramallo (16:10) Interesting, I didn’t know that there was a relationship between the teeth and the apnea
Shiva Kumar (16:19) Yes, there’s a huge, the dentist actually, dentist can do that. Basically, first it has to be identified by a physician, but they are referred to a dentist to go through this process.
Federico Ramallo (16:33) So, a lot of entrepreneurs talk about finding a technical co-founder, right? And from what you’re describing with your co-founder, you are the technical co-founder and your co-founder is the domain expert, right? Which I think is a great dynamic because together you can build something amazing, right?
Shiva Kumar (16:48) But so, yeah.
Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (16:56) and with a fresh perspective
because as a software engineer we can think a solution, an innovative solution that otherwise, you know, somebody in the industry would not have thought about, right? So how that relationship happened? How were you two able to connect and
Shiva Kumar (17:01) Thank
frame.
Federico Ramallo (17:25) co-found this company together.
Shiva Kumar (17:27) Yeah, so me and Dr. Raj were friends for several years and we in two different industry verticals and we so I would say like, you know, identifying a tech co founder is definitely a challenge because everybody says I’m a tech expert everybody says
So someone who actually understand technology and also understand business, you know, how to grow a business, how to actually an entrepreneur basically, who understand how to build a business, one who has gone through the nuances of building a business, who understand, you know, the financial side, business is not just like, you know, making about making money. It’s also how you control the money, how you actually spend the money. So identifying
⁓ a tech co-founder would be like, you know, have to identify whether they have already done a business or they have, you know, a good understanding of the business. So those are some of the things. It’s just not about code. It’s just not about, you know, writing some code and then coming up with a solution, what the doctors want. You have to really understand why this is the problem for the doctor and what they are trying to solve.
and how they are trying to solve. And then the technical co-founder should be able to understand that and then also build the product accordingly. They have to be a solutions architect. They have to be like a coder. They have to be like a businessman. They have to be like a doctor. They have to think all those things. So you have to identify someone like that. I’m sure it’s like, never get a perfect person, but at least 60 to 70%.
It’s just like getting it’s a marriage between two people. That’s what I would say when you when you find your co-founders, it’s a marriage. So you have to find you cannot you will never find a perfect co-founder. But yeah, you can find 60 to 70 percent a co-founder and then you work through that to get to that hundred percent. finding a technical co-founder is just like a marriage finding someone for your marriage. So you have to date. You have to understand.
You have to see how it works and then yeah, this is works, it works. So that’s the challenge everybody has to go through.
Federico Ramallo (19:34) you
Right, was kind of the other questions I was going to ask you. What advice would you give for somebody that is looking for a technical co-founder? You kind of answered the question, but if you want to expand on that, that would be great.
Shiva Kumar (19:56) It’s a marriage, you know, it’s a marriage. have to date, you have to understand each other and then you know, you have to work through that because there could be a lot of egos, there could be a lot of good and bad, there could be, you know, one person say, you know, I know the industry, I know the domain, I’m the domain expert, but the other person may be knowing what they’re doing. it’s it’s a marriage. So you have to really work through it.
And if you’re willing to work through it, yeah, definitely it will pull through. It will pull off. That’s what I would say. You guys can actually make it work. So I would say you need a lot of patience when you’re trying to build a company with a co-founder or a partner. And if you think it’s the right person, you should stay patient, stay focused, work together. No matter what, don’t leave each other’s side and build your vision together.
Federico Ramallo (20:49) Right. Yeah, I think you brought an interesting point when you were talking about that the technical co-founder is more than a software developer. It has all the technical responsibilities of a software architect. It’s also in charge of understanding what features will make sense to build or not based on
on the requirements, right? There’s so much more into that. And you also bring another interesting point of that also has to have experience running a business because, you know, if we do something wrong with using any, you know, AWS service or whatever, then, you know, the cost could go up, you know, and the economic unit, yeah, yeah, and then the economic unit breaks, right?
Shiva Kumar (21:18) So ⁓
The technical co-founder also has to work, you know, they have to be very, very smart in trade-offs because when you have investors, when you have board members, they always want the solutions to go fast into the market. And because it’s business, you know, you have to get the solutions into people’s hands as quickly as possible. So you also have to trade off, you have to learn to trade off how you actually trade off in achieving the results.
So I would say I’ve done that. I’m not sure if I’ve done that accepting and satisfying my ego, but I have no choices. Sometimes I have to make trade-offs and get things done on time and achieve what the business needs. So for that, you need to have some kind of a business understanding is what I would say. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (22:30) Right I
have a similar situation when I’m building in new projects because my heart, my technical heart is on RubinRails, I love RubinRails but then when I’m reading requirements of new projects I have to be very careful of not being biased and making sure that I’m finding the right
the right language framework tool for that specific problem, challenge, and eventually ended up working with other frameworks because that’s what the project requires and there are many trade-offs in any projects
Shiva Kumar (23:02) Okay.
Federico Ramallo (23:15) resources, time, you know,
Shiva Kumar (23:17) Everything comes together you know you without trade-offs I mean at the end of the day you know you also have to know
the AWS cost, any other cloud systems you use, the cost will go up spontaneously. You have to make sure you also take care of those costs and you don’t compromise on the quality. At the same time, you also don’t burn the money because investors, you have a fiduciary responsibility of managing investors’ money. And it’s just not, does not, lies on just one co-founder. It just lies on every other person in the team. So.
It is always important that you learn to trade off the right, you know, I wouldn’t say it’s the right way. I would say it’s like you have to learn how to trade off and make sure end of the day you obtain the results.
Federico Ramallo (24:08) Right. I mentioned before that you also built and scaled global engineering teams. What strategies have worked best for maintaining quality and culture across global teams?
Shiva Kumar (24:21) Yeah, working with different cultures is always a challenge. And I think I have worked with developers in the Ukraine. I have worked with developers from Argentina, India, Pakistan. yeah, so these are some of the places in Philippines. Now, every country I said has a different working culture. I have worked with developers in the US. Everybody has different working culture. But at the of the day, bringing them together
So you have to give them the combined vision, what would be the vision of the company and what you guys are doing. So language barrier was there, but we used a lot of different process management tools like Jira and Fastening tools. We had business associate to lay out what are the different features. And these associates actually work with the product owners. And then these product owners work with the stakeholders.
And finally, we actually make sure everything is passed on to the entire group, even. So working with global teams, this would be a process I believe everybody would be following in standard. But you have to hire the right companies. That’s another challenge, identifying the right company or the right resource, their experience, doing a technical
evaluation of what they’re actually talking about. So these are kind of some of the things you have to keep in mind. And just don’t go by just saying, like, I know this, I know that. But evaluate, evaluate, evaluate, and see if they can actually do what they’re talking about. Most of the time in software projects, we hear is like, project is not getting delivered in time. The feature is not getting delivered in time. So.
Those things could happen in global teams massively if you don’t communicate or communicate across the teams or you don’t identify the right team with the right experience. So when you select teams, you also have to keep in mind that if they have worked in the specific vertical, have, let’s say if it’s healthcare, health tech, telehealth, you need to identify teams who have already worked in that space. So that makes the…
communication easier understanding of the product easier. So these are the some of the things you need to keep in mind.
Federico Ramallo (26:40) Right. And how were you able to choose between different, you mentioned multiple countries, and from Argentina, by the way, I’m glad to hear that you hire engineers from Argentina. How do you do the screening, the selection, and the scaling of those global teams?
Shiva Kumar (26:49) Yeah.
So we had HR teams and technical teams to do that. So I personally look at some of the resumes because I work with HR teams with pretty close friends. they share me all the, I give the specifics of it. This is the kind of, we need like five people to achieve this target. And all these five people, three people will be off a certain level of experience, two people will be off a certain level of experience and it gives them the requirement. And then they go to companies like Top Tel or
There are multiple options. TopTel is basically where we work with resources directly. So that’s how I got into Adjunct. There is no companies outsourcing. We work directly with developers through this platform. So they help us shortlist these resources. And also we do internal shortlisting based on their skills. And we identify if they would actually fit into our requirement and scaling.
and then we bring them in.
Federico Ramallo (28:01) Right.
How do you work with the team on different time zones? Because usually that’s an issue,
Shiva Kumar (28:09) Yeah, that’s a huge issue. So, I mean, that’s a huge issue, but still, since we have product owners, we also had to have project managers work in different time zones. So, since we had the process very clearly laid out from the stakeholders to the product owners to the project managers to the end developer or the architect, so we had a process on dealing with from start to finish.
So the project managers report to us before we start our day. And before, I mean, when we start our day, they report to us and then we let you tell them what is to be done. We review them together. And then there was a lot of challenges in the time zone, but we used to have one common connecting time when all the team can connect. So we used to, all the different time zones would move at least at one point where we want, we all get together and then
We have a lot of stand up discussions on what’s going on and distributing across the So that’s how we managed it.
Federico Ramallo (29:13) Right, right. Yeah, the time zone usually is an issue, but I think you nailed it at the beginning when you were talking about communication, because if you have clear communication, then everything else becomes secondary, right? ⁓ It can be solved, right? Yeah, and then one thing that worked for me pretty well.
Shiva Kumar (29:29) Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (29:34) when I’ve been working with different remote teams is to make, instead of an avatar, you’re sending an email to the product owner, it’s an email, it’s a photo on the screen, right? So building that personal relationship, right? ⁓ Because then with that, it’s not only an avatar, it becomes the…
Shiva Kumar (29:49) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (29:54) the guy that, you know, he beat me at mini goal for whatever, right? Whatever that may be, right? But it becomes much, much ⁓ a closer relationship and that helped us to, you know, have a better communication or being able to be proactively communicating on both sides, right? ⁓ So, so yeah, humanizing the, you know, the person on the other side, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shiva Kumar (29:59) Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, we call it a Zeman housing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that connectivity
required, that connection is required. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (30:23) Yeah, yeah. mean, before COVID, I used to do that in person. But
then, you know, during the pandemic, we stopped the trips, right? And that became more challenging. Yes, yes.
Shiva Kumar (30:33) We just had face
to face, we had Zoom, had Google meets and seeing on the camera.
Federico Ramallo (30:45) Yeah, and then we started doing these online games, you know, every once in a while where we just… It’s kind of hanging out, having an online game where everybody has to paint something or whatever, or draw something on the web applications that… websites that allows you to do those type of games. And that was a great way to…
Shiva Kumar (30:47) Thank
Yeah.
Great.
Federico Ramallo (31:11) build a team together, right?
Awesome, so I wanted to ask you a little bit more about, you talk a little bit about that you guys are using AI. Can you tell us a little bit more on how you’re implementing AI?
Shiva Kumar (31:28) Interesting. Yeah, that’s the interesting part. is like, I mean, we are implementing, we have already implemented quite a bit of solutions in ⁓ AI. We have built and installed chat agents, which basically help in answering any questions. Any dentistry related questions can be asked to the agent. And it responds with a specific set of answers. Anything else you ask, won’t say anything else. It is very specific design to dentistry. We made
voice to voice notes so doctors can actually record their notes it converts into a summary and then it can get converted in soap notes and puts into the patient shot. So these are the some of the solutions we have built and then there are we’re also coming with you know ecosystem where you can let’s say we can’t build every other AI software so people can actually bring their software connected into our ecosystem through
we act as a middleware to communicate with our platform. So now it is changing into an app marketplace for the NS2. So we are building that out. We already built it, but I think we are going to launch it soon and people can actually start integrating with us and then those apps can be available on our platform.
Federico Ramallo (32:45) interesting. ⁓ your users are the dentist and the patients, right? You have both on the system.
Shiva Kumar (32:46) Thank you.
yes correct
Federico Ramallo (32:57) And who is your target customer? Who are you ⁓ billing?
Shiva Kumar (33:03) So we are basically having like, you know, we have two different sections. Like one is like the B2B and B2C. So B2C is where we have our patients and we have a lot of B2C solutions available. Most of the solutions I told you were B2C. But there is also like a huge area B2B, which I said a very little thing about it.
Federico Ramallo (33:22) nice.
Shiva Kumar (33:28) We have a very huge software behind it. We automate their workflows in various different ways. So there are two different parts to Dentshulu. It’s called Dentshulu and Dentshulu Pro. And we service both our ⁓ providers, dental officers, DSOs. And the other side, we service patients. So it’s separate into two different sections.
Federico Ramallo (33:57) I see. yeah, because I can see two different scenarios for the health care patients and the dentists managing their practice through the application.
Shiva Kumar (34:09) Right, right, exactly. So both the solutions are available on our platform.
Federico Ramallo (34:16) Interesting, yeah. Because the other question I was going to ask, and that this is kind of, as you already answered, I think, is if the general public can sign up to the NLULU, right, and get the benefits as patients, right? And if you already have built a B2C, then I believe the answer is yes, right?
Shiva Kumar (34:27) Right.
Federico Ramallo (34:36) Amazing, yeah. What other biggest challenge you ⁓ had while building the application?
Shiva Kumar (34:41) you ⁓
Not one, several. We had several challenges. Several, I would say several. Maybe I can give you one example. Let’s say we do case approvals. call it as case approvals. Now doctors are so used to templates. They pick templates, they write the notes, then it comes up ready-made, and then it goes into the patient’s chart.
Federico Ramallo (34:49) hahahahah
Shiva Kumar (35:12) So building that templating system for doctors ground up was a challenge for us. That is one example. The other example would be the device I showed you, the NorthCam device. So this device was very challenging because we had three versions of it. We have SDK log and then this has to, it’s a Wi-Fi powered camera. So if you connect to this, someone’s phone cannot disconnect, right? Because everybody’s on internet.
So this was one of the major, major challenges we faced. If you have a chance, hopefully I can show you, but connecting that to the device and then in real time taking pictures, sending it to the doctors, we designed a whole workflow, like six, seven steps on how to take pictures. It actually fits in your mouth and then sending. So this was like, that was a massive challenge we had. We pulled it together. And the third example I would say is like,
I get this question all the time, like, how do you even bring everything together in one single ecosystem? So bringing together everything into one single system was a very, challenging thing we did. And we ran a lot of microservices. We did not want to build it as a monolith software, we built it as a microservice-based services. And now all our AI agents are also microservices. We are adding that into the.
legacy system and making sure the legacy system is not put to rest. So those are like just some challenges, but we had real world challenges, you know, dealing with doctors, their requirements, their comments, their feedbacks, you know, their frustrations, their anger. So I can keep adding. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (36:39) interesting.
I think that, and I say this with love with all doctors, but most doctors that I work with as users, they are the hardest users to work with. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shiva Kumar (37:05) Very tough, very tough. But once you
actually pull up working with doctors and dentists, I don’t think any other field is so tough or would be looking any tougher. You can pull up in any way to go. Once you start talking with doctors and you build something out.
Federico Ramallo (37:24) Right, right. And I sympathize with them. I mean, I understand where they’re coming from because they’re used to do things in one particular way that the industry has been for many, years. And every change could potentially lead to issues with the patient. they’re very…
Shiva Kumar (37:37) Thank
Federico Ramallo (37:45) Defensive to any change, right? They don’t want to make changes because you know for them represent a liability, right? So I I understand where they’re coming from, right? ⁓ Yeah, but then on the other hand we want to innovate and make things better and different right and that require change, right? So having having to work that balance can be quite challenging
Shiva Kumar (37:47) Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Correct. Yeah.
Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (38:15) Interesting.
I mentioned at the beginning that you spoken at the UN about AI for development, right? ⁓ I think that’s amazing. Can you tell us a little bit about that story?
Shiva Kumar (38:25) Yeah,
sure. So I thought ⁓ AI forum for the Global South was one of the most interesting opportunity I got because they went about like five to six rounds before.
It was not like a paid thing or was not, it is not something like, you know, a fancy thing, but they actually ⁓ identified a lot of different people, interviewed them, spoke with them. Maybe went through like five to six different meetings to understand, you know, so they really picked from 800 different participants and then who applied as speakers. So all of that within the, you know, within that.
we had about 70 to 80 speakers getting selected for speaking in different topics. I was made to speak in infrastructure and especially on infrastructure. So that was a very interesting topic for me because obviously building an AI infrastructure, would you work on infrastructure or would you work on
building a solution first, put it into the market, then you build the infrastructure. So I was part of the speaker team and then I was able to get a lot of insights. I delivered a lot of insights about what is the first things you need to focus, though infrastructure is also very important because Global South cannot afford to invest in huge
infrastructures like the Western countries would do. So I gave examples of like SLMs, small language models, how that can be done on small devices, which doesn’t require a huge infrastructure, but still produce the same quality of these large language models. these are some of the things I presented, and it was very interesting.
opportunity I got and then the leverage it actually gave me in the global south, the connections. I’m also again invited in Bangkok. It’s happening in February 2026. So they have invited me to be the speaker in Bangkok as well.
Federico Ramallo (40:55) interesting. Yeah. I heard great things about Bangkok. I haven’t been there yet.
Shiva Kumar (40:56) Yeah.
Yeah, Bangkok is a great place to be.
Federico Ramallo (41:06) really, interesting. ⁓ So what advice would you give to younger entrepreneurs that looking to get into the, either they’re starting their entrepreneurial journey, they’re thinking on getting into healthcare, what advice would you give them?
Shiva Kumar (41:07) Yeah.
I think I would also, I will also give the same kind of answers. A lot of these entrepreneurs have already said, but hopefully I can, I can say something different from my experience. They always focused on for what you’re building. Don’t build because you like it. Or someone told like, okay, this would be good. Build, which is actually solving a real problem.
It could be a small problem. could be a large problem, identify the problem build it towards it work towards it and then that would actually take you to the right path. And then ⁓ if you are a new entrepreneur, I’m telling you entrepreneur journey is not easy. It’s like I think there’s a saying that you jump off a cliff without wings and then you grow your wings while falling down. That’s entrepreneurship. So
Federico Ramallo (42:13) Yeah
Shiva Kumar (42:16) If you are ready to take the challenge, yes, just you just have to jump. have to jump. But for jumping, you need a lot of patience. You need a lot of struggles to go through. But I’m not scaring the new age, new entrepreneurs. you know, that’s the reality. Entrepreneur journey is very tough. It’s a lifestyle. It’s I would say it’s a lifestyle. It’s not like a nine to five job. It’s either there is no time. You don’t have a different time. Define time you work.
There is no defined holidays, there is no defined nothing. ⁓ You have to work.
Federico Ramallo (42:49) Right, it’s
a pure grit and sheer commitment.
Shiva Kumar (42:55) It’s commitment. It’s sheer commitment to what you’re doing and keep building. So, but it, you know, there’s also things like, you will have to work, you have to work for a few years, for several years, so that the rest of your life you have, you don’t have to work. That’s what entrepreneurship is. So, yeah.
Federico Ramallo (43:01) Right.
Amazing, amazing advice, yeah.
So we’re almost running out of time, but do you want to do some final remarks? What’s next for Denlulu? What’s next for you? What are you to do in the future?
Shiva Kumar (43:36) Yeah,
so, we are going, we are going big, we are massively, we have signed them huge contracts and we have gone into the next phase of a business. Our revenue is increasing and we are growing fast in the States and we are also planning to go global. We are discussing going into Arab markets, Australian markets,
Europe and India. we’re working on all these. So 2026 is going to be very interesting and challenging. So that’s on the DENTULU and me personally, yes, I’m still focused committed same entrepreneur working with DENTULU and working for DENTULU and trying to make our combined vision come successful. I have a great excellent partner, excellent co-founder with me who
You will not find a doctor who works like him. A doctor. you know, after being 15 years in being a doctor, getting to the level of sitting and working from morning to night and no Sundays, no weekends. Come on, finding doctors like them is very difficult.
I mean one of them, one of them. So I’m very lucky and thankful to have him as my partner. And ⁓ we guys have pulled this together. So that’s where we stand.
Federico Ramallo (45:07) That’s amazing, yeah. And I’m very happy for you to have found such an amazing co-founder and that you’re working so great together. And I’m looking forward to see where you take both take Den Lulu. Next.
Yeah.
Shiva Kumar (45:24) Sure.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (45:26) So thank you very much Shiva for being here today. We learned a lot and I follow your journey along.
Shiva Kumar (45:37) Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to your podcast and I wish you good luck and hopefully the information I shared is useful for your viewers and we look forward to staying in touch with you.
Federico Ramallo (45:53) Sounds great. Sounds great. Thank you Shiva.
Shiva Kumar (45:54) ⁓
Thank you.