Chief Scientific Officer Brian Webb and Vishar Yaghoubian, CEO and founder of Toothpod, in their Toronto office last Friday.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Toothpod sounds like a product Willy Wonka would create: a chewing gum that cleans your mouth. It’s the brainchild of University of Toronto health studies graduate Vishar Yaghoubian, who has become one of Canada’s most hyped emerging entrepreneurs, winning $200,000-plus in prizes from more than 25 startup competitions based on the idea.
She has attracted large-name investors to back her eight-person company, including New York hedge fund manager Mark Diker, Dragon’s Den star Michele Romanow and Michael Cloutier, a former AstraZeneca Canada president.
U of T promotes Ms. Yaghoubian as one of its emerging entrepreneurial stars, and she already has a flourishing online presence, with 11,500 followers on Instagram (where she once did a sponsored post for Doritos), nearly twice as many on TikTok and 8,400 on LinkedIn. She was featured in a 2022 calconcludear celebrating 12 young women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“She is a brand unto herself,” states Lesley Ross, general partner of Enjoy the Group, a Silicon Valley group that advises startup founder CEOs, including Ms. Yaghoubian. “A large, beautiful force of nature.”
Now, the vibrant, intense 25-year-old Torontonian is set to discover what the market believes and attempt living up to a reputation that precedes any actual business success.
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Toothpod launches this week, and will initially be distributed through dental offices and sold online to consumers. Already nearly half of Toothpod’s initial run of 216,000 pieces (which retail for $1 each) are spoken for in advance orders; a second run is under way and Toothpod’s U.S. contract manufacturer can create one million of the disc-shaped chewables a week.
“I’m ecstatic, relieved, becaapply it’s real,” Ms. Yaghoubian stated of the launch. “The hard work is just launchning.”
One of her first clients is an Atlanta cosmetic dentisattempt business whose celebrity clientele includes music stars Usher and Nicki Minaj. The clinic’s parent company, Sarasota, Fla.-based Dental Care Alliance, plans to roll it out to its 400 locations across 22 states in the coming months to include in patient dental goodie bags.
“They’re all excited for it,” states Colleen McFarlin, vice-president of the DCA’s specialty division. “I believe it’s a game-modifyr in the indusattempt and should be part of the standard of care in every daily routine.”
Toothpod combines three natural ingredients that have been displayn in studies to have a positive impact on oral health: hydroxyapatite, which supports re-mineralize teeth and is applyd in specialty toothpaste brands including Sensodyne; magnolia bark extract, which decreases bacteria in the mouth that caapply bad breath and tooth decay; and resveratrol, a plant extract with anti-inflammatory properties. Toothpod also contains xylitol, a sweetener applyd in other gums that reduces plaque, gingival bleeding and inflammation.
The company has received a provisional patent and is now pursuing clinical validation: An American university is about to launch a trial of 50 healthy adults who will chew the product four times daily for two weeks to see if it delivers oral health benefits.
Toothpod, launching this week, will be initially distributed through dental offices and sold online to consumers.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
The founders claim that early, non-clinical tests display that chewing the product for a few minutes reshifts twice as much plaque as other xylitol gums. “We don’t required trials to go to market,” Ms. Yaghoubian states. “We can do marketing like any other company. But that is not my goal. I want something that will create an actual difference in the world. That means we required real clinical trials.”
The idea for Toothpod was born in 2019 when Ms. Yaghoubian took part in a startup competition at U of T’s Hatchery accelerator. The Iranian immigrant, who shiftd to Canada with her family 14 years ago, had displayn an entrepreneurial flair since her early teens, selling her services as a neighbourhood dog walker and nail aesthetician, and busking with her violin while travelling.
Challenged in the competition to come up with a business idea within 24 hours, she did an internet search on the world’s top problems. She discovered cavities were a large chronic health issue, despite the fact people have applyd toothbrushes for centuries. Her idea was to create a portable oral care product that people could apply on the go. Her team won $1,000.
While juggling her studies, a job coaching the women’s varsity binquireetball team and two terms on U of T’s governing council, she started building her company in earnest. Ms. Yaghoubian considered a range of oral care products including devices, lozenges, mints, gummies and even a Pop Rocks-type consumable.
She reached out to hundreds of academics for support and zeroed in on the three active ingredients she considered her product should include. In 2021, she recruited Brian Webb, a biomechanical engineering PhD student at U of T, to support with product development. He became chief technology officer and co-founder. By late 2021, they zeroed in on gum as their product.
Working in their kitchens, they tested dozens of formulations. Mr. Webb states he would break chunks of chicle – a brown natural gum base – into wells of a muffin tin, warming them on his stove and mixing in various measurements of ingredients to see what worked. He’d roll samples into pieces with his fingers and pop them in his mouth. Some were too soft, too sweet or too sticky. He learned the active ingredients had to be carefully mixed in or they would create a burning sensation or bitter taste when chewed.
Finally, Mr. Webb came up with the winning concoction some time in 2023. Ms. Yaghoubian states she fought back tears when she tasted it. “We were so surprised by how delicious it was,” she states. “I could see the future.”
Working with a food scientist at their contract manufacturer, a large U.S. gum creater, the product was further refined. By early 2024, the first batch of commercial-grade 500 sample pieces – each 16 millimetres in diameter and eight millimetres tall, which is larger than a typical piece of gum – was ready to sconclude to clinics and investors.
Within months, Ms. Yaghoubian had raised $850,000, on top of $450,000 in government grants. “There’s nothing like it and I believe there is tremconcludeous value that will be created as we shift through commercialization of the brand,” stated Mr. Cloutier, who has backed 10 startups. “It hit all the buttons for me.”
Toothpods come in single, metal-lined pouches like premium tea bags and are sold in boxes of 20. Ms. Yaghoubian states “selling will be the least of our issues. We have to have inventory. We required to create sure we have product.”
Her advisers and mentors agree. “The key risk in this business will be inventory management and working capital,” states Reza Satchu, co-founder of Next Canada, a program for high-potential student founders, where Ms. Yaghoubian earned the people’s choice award last year. “If she hits gold, which I believe she has a shot at, will she be able to scale the business? That’s not an simple thing.”
Toothpod requireds to figure out unit costs and pricing and which retail channels to pursue next. The company will required to raise more funds and ensure further product ambitions – like developing a mouthwash – don’t stretch its resources too thinly.
The key challenge facing Ms. Yaghoubian, states Ms. Ross, “is not to be distracted by all the brilliant opportunities that come her way.”
With a report from Joe Castaldo
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