exocad Brand Guidelines: The Darmstadt Dental CAD Software Spun Out of Fraunhofer

Software out of a computer-graphics institute.

exocad is a dental software company based in Darmstadt, in the German state of Hesse. It began as a research spin-off: the company was spun out of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD in 2010, according to a 2020 note by the law firm Latham & Watkins, and has since established itself as an independent developer of dental CAD/CAM software. The same note gave it five offices worldwide.

Align Technology’s 2020 announcements name its co-founders as Tillmann Steinbrecher and Maik Gerth. Steinbrecher was exocad’s chief executive when the German dental journal zm reported on the company in March 2020, and he was still described in that role when the German dental news site ZWP online covered a new release in December 2023.

The name is written in lower case, as one word, in the company’s releases and in the trade press that quotes them. Its core product is DentalCAD, design software for dental laboratories and for practices that offer a full service, ZWP online reported in 2023. Alongside it sits exoplan, which zm described in 2020 as exocad’s open implant-planning software. Align’s 2020 release listed exocad’s expertise as restorative dentistry, implantology, guided surgery and smile design.

exocad sells mainly through others. Its software is distributed through partner companies, zm reported, and the 2020 Align release counted close to 200 partners and more than 35,000 licences installed worldwide, with the software used in more than 150 countries. Makers of CAD/CAM systems integrate exocad’s software into their own offerings, the company’s boilerplate says, and thousands of DentalCAD licences are sold each year.

Align Technology, since April 2020.

The ownership story is short. In 2020 exocad was sold by the investment firm Carlyle, which Latham & Watkins advised on the deal, to Align Technology, the American company behind the Invisalign clear aligner system and the iTero intraoral scanners. In mid-March the two companies held a joint press conference in Darmstadt before the purchase had fully closed; zm reported on 16 March 2020 that Steinbrecher told the press exocad would “continue on our path as before and remain completely independent” (our translation), that sales through partner companies would not change, and that its open software architecture would continue.

Align announced on 2 April 2020, in a release datelined San Jose and Darmstadt, that it had completed the purchase of the privately held exocad Global Holdings GmbH. Align’s chief executive at the time, Joe Hogan, called it “a natural next step in the collaboration between our two companies that began in 2017.” Align said exocad would continue to operate as it existed, delivering hardware-independent software to its partners and users; that it planned to maintain all exocad products and services; and that the co-founders and their team would stay, reporting to Align’s chief financial officer. In Align’s framing, exocad’s software would extend its Invisalign and iTero products into restorative work, opening the way to cross-disciplinary dentistry in the laboratory and at the chair. At the Darmstadt press conference, zm reported, Align’s senior director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Vianne Battle, said it was exocad’s approach to digital dentistry that had convinced the company.

Since then the software has been tied more closely to its owner’s systems while still sold through partners. By December 2023 ZWP online described exocad as a company of Align Technology. The DentalCAD release it reported that month included an iTero-exocad Connector, through which clinicians can share case files such as images, videos and X-rays with DentalCAD users via the MyiTero portal, and through which laboratories can share their 3D designs back for preview and approval.

Design and documentation.

Dental implant and digital-dentistry companies sell to a narrow, expert audience, and their pictures show it. The typical product image is a small titanium screw shot on a white or pale grey ground, often beside its abutment and the driver that seats it, and lit to show the thread and the surface. Packaging tends to follow the same order: clean white boxes, colour codes for sizes, and the product line’s name set larger than the company’s.

Digital dentistry adds a second set of images. Intraoral scanners appear as slim wands next to a laptop or a cart, and the screen matters as much as the hardware: a coloured three-dimensional render of an arch, a planned implant position inside a CT slice, or a crown being shaped in design software. Milling machines and printers are shown with the blocks and discs they cut, and finished work is usually photographed as a single milled crown or bridge on a neutral surface.

The third subject is the clinician. Implant makers run training courses, symposia and hands-on sessions, and their brochures and press releases often show lecture halls and dentists at practice models rather than patients. Trade fairs carry much of that presentation: IDS, the International Dental Show in Cologne, and the congresses of the European Association for Osseointegration are where companies set up large stands, launch product lines and gather speakers.

The result is a category that looks clinical and orderly, with white space, steel greys and one or two accent colours carrying most of the identity. The companies in this guide include implant makers from South Korea, Europe, Brazil and the United States, alongside firms in intraoral scanners, lasers and CAD/CAM software. Each guide sets out who founded the company, who owns it now and what it says about where its products are made, separating documented facts from the company’s own claims.

Releases named after cities.

exocad’s most distinctive naming habit is its release names. Each major version carries the name of a city: zm reported DentalCAD 2.4 Plovdiv and exoplan 3.0 Galway in March 2020, and ZWP online reported DentalCAD 3.2 Elefsina in December 2023. exocad says, in a 2024 article it wrote for the American dental-laboratory magazine LMT, that all of its software releases are named after a European Capital of Culture, and that Elefsina is a Greek city.

The Elefsina release brought more than 60 new features, ZWP online reported, among them a tool for repairing preparation margins on imperfect intraoral scans, a new automatic articulator, new tools in the Smile Creator module, more automation in the bite-splint module and a quick-copy workflow in the full-denture module. Smile Creator users could now design a virtual gingiva, and an add-on module was offered for the Ivoclar Ivotion denture system, with a matching tooth library available through Ivoclar. Steinbrecher described the release as offering “more automation, speed and intuitive workflows from CAD to CAM.”

The brand therefore rests less on a product you can hold than on a name, a release calendar and a network of partners who carry the software into their own machines.

For a design guide, exocad shows how a software maker can build a recognisable identity from a lower-case name and a habit of naming each release after a city. Compare Align Technology, its owner since 2020, and 3Shape, another digital-dentistry software name. For this guide we use a midnight navy and a mint green with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep exocad’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.