Quip wants to help you floss

Quip, the dental care startup that first went to market with electric toothbrushes, has launched its first product outside of brushes: a floss applicator with a refillable canister.

The floss costs $20 for the metallic applicator and refills cost $5. Each string is pre-marked every 18 inches to help guide people to use that amount for each session. The floss has been in the works since before Quip officially launched its toothbrush, Quip CEO Simon Enever told TechCrunch.

“As we’ve talked about a lot, our mission is very much to help with all of the fundamentals of oral care, and floss has been that next natural chapter for us on the personal care side of the business,” he said. “There are all of these bad habits people exhibit or don’t exhibit in flossing. There are massive numbers of people who don’t get the basics right and even fewer people are bothering to floss even once a day. For us, it’s paired so closely with brushing itself. The only true way to get proper results in oral care is to both floss and brush.”

With the floss applicator, the hope is to make flossing something people actually want to do. To help with that, Quip designed it to easily fit inside your pocket so you can easily take it on the go.

“A big insight from our research is that people want to floss on the go,” Enever said. “That’s the time when people want to floss but no one brings their floss with them. We tried to create something that slips comfortably into your pocket.”

To date, Quip has raised more than $60 million in funding from Sherpa Capital, TriplePoint Capital, NFP Ventures and others.