The deal and why it matters
The European Investment Bank has granted a €40 million venture loan to Impress, a Barcelona-based clear-aligner company with Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund among its backers. A draft EIB statement viewed by Bloomberg says the funding is meant to support growth beyond Southern Europe and forms part of the European Union's push to finance healthcare and technology companies.
"The digital transformation of the healthcare sector offers great opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of services for citizens," said María Romano, the EIB's head for Spain. She added that the company can contribute to the "EU's leadership in digital innovation applied to healthcare."
Impress's growth story
Impress began operations in 2019 and has secured €280 million across five rounds; its cap table features Mubadala Investment Co., Claret Capital Partners, and LBO France. It is the largest clear-aligner provider in Southern Europe and accelerated after buying Dr. Smile from Straumann Holding AG in 2024.
The company operates in 10 countries through 110 clinics, including 22 in Spain. It reached profitability in 2025 as revenue climbed 40% to €102 million, a pace Chief Executive and co-founder Vladimir Lupenko aims to maintain. "We always had a global ambition," he said.
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Strategy, unit economics, and tech
Impress is shifting greater attention to Germany and the Netherlands, describing those markets as fragmented and dominated by traditional braces, and it also has US expansion in its plans. Lupenko said the AI surge has improved tools for supervising care remotely, so patients come in only when needed and the business can operate with fewer doctors and facilities. As he put it, "we only need a few clinics."
Treatments cost about €3,000 versus roughly €4,500 for traditional orthodontics. On the cost side, marketing runs around 20% of revenue and leans on digital channels such as TikTok, clinics and staff take another 20%, and aligners account for about 20%.
Investor takeaway
The new €40 million from the EIB is aimed at helping Impress expand beyond Southern Europe, with a sharper push into markets like Germany where the company sees room to win share. Lower in-person needs plus a direct digital funnel is the operating recipe, and it just showed up in 2025 profitability on €102 million of revenue. The bottom line: capital is lining up behind health tech platforms that can travel across borders and prove their cost math.
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