Natural Dental Implants Won EIC Accelerator, Then Went Insolvent

Natural Dental Implants AG, a Berlin company founded in 2006, made the Replicate Tooth: a one-piece implant milled as a copy of the patient's own tooth, root and all, and pressed into the socket the moment the damaged tooth comes out. On 5 June 2019 the European Commission selected its Replicate project in the last round of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 pilot of what is now the EIC Accelerator, as a grant-only award, according to the Commission's list of selected companies, which names Natural Dental Implants as the project's only beneficiary. On 14 November 2019 the Berlin commercial register published a court order over the company's assets under insolvency case 36n IN 6745/19, and in February 2020 it recorded the company's liquidation, according to North Data. PitchBook lists the company as out of business.

CORDIS, the EU's database of Horizon 2020 projects, lists no Phase 2 project for Natural Dental Implants. The only project it shows is a €50,000 Phase 1 feasibility study from 2018, which planned the Phase 2 work, according to CORDIS. Whether a Phase 2 grant agreement was ever signed, and whether any EU money was paid, could not be verified.

Where Natural Dental Implants Stands Now

The company is in liquidation after insolvency. The Charlottenburg local court ended the insolvency proceedings by an order of 28 August 2023, published on 4 September 2023; the register entry shown by North Data is cut off before it says on what grounds, and whether creditors or the 396 crowd investors recovered anything is not public. North Data still shows the company as "i. L." (in liquidation), not as deleted from the register.

The technology did not die with it. The core European patent, EP3421006, filed by Natural Dental Implants with a 2006 priority date and granted on 31 July 2024, is now assigned to RTRS Investment LLC, according to Google Patents. The RTRS Technologies website lists that patent among its own, presents the same Replicate System and names Rubbert as inventor and Ellermeier as co-founder. The old replicatetooth.com address, still linked from the High-Tech Gründerfonds portfolio page, now redirects to the RTRS site. How RTRS acquired the patents, and whether it bought them from the insolvency estate, is not public.

The Technology: Copy the Tooth Instead of Drilling for a Screw

A standard dental implant is a titanium screw drilled into the jawbone, which heals for months before a crown goes on top; the alternative, a three-unit bridge, grinds down the two healthy neighbouring teeth. Replicate took a 3D X-ray of the damaged tooth before extraction and milled a one-piece copy of it, a titanium root fused to a zirconia part above the gum, which the dentist pushed into the empty socket in the same appointment, with no drilling. A temporary protective crown bonded to the neighbouring teeth held it in place while the bone grew onto it, according to DrBicuspid, reporting the launch of version 2.0 at the International Dental Show in March 2015. The pitch was that a general dentist, not only an implant specialist, could place it.

The limits were built into the design: the method only works at the moment of extraction, as an August 2018 industry announcement on ZWP online noted, which named Rubbert as CEO and said the teeth were made in Berlin. In 2015 the system was sold in the EU and was to reach the US "immediately on FDA clearance". In March 2017 the company showed a working prototype of a 3D-printed version and said it would start "extensive product testing" that year, according to BioSpace, which again described the US launch as pending FDA approval. The FDA's public 510(k) data, searched through the openFDA device database, show no clearance for Natural Dental Implants as applicant or for a device named Replicate.

Thirteen Years of Funding Rounds

Natural Dental Implants was financed for more than a decade by venture and public investors. In June 2011 it closed a €1 million follow-on round led by BB Biotech Ventures with IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, and High-Tech Gründerfonds, already an investor, then expected market entry in the second half of 2011, according to High-Tech Gründerfonds. In August 2017 an equity crowdfunding campaign on Companisto raised €1,359,490 from 396 investors for 3.23% of the company, which implied a valuation of €45 million, according to Crowdfund Insider; the article said the product had launched in Germany and the US, which the FDA record above does not support for the US. The register shows the share capital rising in repeated steps between 2008 and December 2018, when it reached €325,010, and the Investitionsbank Berlin and VC Fonds Technologie Berlin as shareholders in 2019, according to North Data. No revenue or loss figures for the company could be found; the last annual accounts listed in the register are for 2018.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows

The 2018 Phase 1 study ran from 1 May to 31 August 2018 with an EU contribution of €50,000 towards a total cost of €71,429, according to CORDIS. Its published report set out the Phase 2 plan: a new "REPLICATE NCD Zirconia line", an all-zirconia tooth with a thin-film diamond coating to replace the titanium and zirconia hybrid, more automated production with quality controls for ceramics, and enough capacity "to meet the demands of pan EU and US expansion". The project summary forecast sales of 40,000 units in the first three years after launch. The company selected in June 2019 to carry this out was in insolvency before the end of the year.

1. Phase 2 project under wayNot deliveredNo Phase 2 project on CORDIS; insolvency entered November 2019.
2. All-zirconia, diamond-coated Replicate toothNot deliveredNo launch announced by the company or a third party.
3. Scaled-up production for the EU and USNot deliveredCompany liquidated; the successor runs a pilot line in Texas.
4. US market entryNot deliveredNo FDA 510(k) clearance found.
5. Patents kept in useTransferredEP3421006 granted in 2024 to RTRS Investment LLC.

The Dallas Successor

RTRS Investment LLC was formed in Delaware on 22 September 2020, seven months after the Berlin company's liquidation was registered, and converted into RTRS Technologies, Inc. on 14 November 2024, according to its Form C offering filed with the SEC on 5 December 2024. The filing names Rubbert as chief executive since May 2022 and Ellermeier as a founder and board member, describes the company as pre-commercial, and says it stands out by "leveraging custom silicon nitride implants", a different ceramic from the titanium and zirconia of the original tooth and the diamond-coated zirconia of the EU plan. It reported a pilot production line in Richardson, Texas, said it was "finalizing preparations for its first 510(k) filing", and aimed to begin clinical use and pilot sales by the second quarter of 2025.

Its reviewed but unaudited accounts show no revenue in 2022 or 2023, a net loss of $1,364,050 in 2023 after $601,582 in 2022, and cash down to $91,363 at the end of 2023, with the reviewing accountants flagging doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern. On 8 January 2025 it reported raising $154,007.07 on StartEngine, above its $123,994.40 minimum, according to an SEC progress update. The SEC's filing index shows no later filing after a February 2025 update, and no announcement of clinical use, sales or an FDA clearance by RTRS could be found. Its website states that the Replicate System "is not available for distribution in the US".

EIC Fund and Other EU Money

Natural Dental Implants does not appear among the roughly 315 organisations on the EIC Fund's list of invested companies, checked across all 16 pages, and neither does RTRS. The award was grant only, so no EIC equity was ever part of it. CORDIS lists no other EU project for the company besides the 2018 Phase 1 study.

Why Europe Should Care

Dental implants are regulated in the EU as medical devices under the Medical Device Regulation, which has applied since 26 May 2021 and is the framework a small European implant maker has to clear to sell at all. The RTRS filing names Straumann Group as the industry leader it competes with. A European company with its own patented alternative to the screw implant was the kind of firm the EIC pilot set out to scale. Instead, the EIC selected it months before its insolvency, and the patents, the inventor and the next attempt at commercialisation have moved to Texas, where the first market is meant to be the US.

The Verdict

Natural Dental Implants' liquidator, RTRS Technologies and the EIC were not asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.