Yimu Vision Completes Tens of Millions RMB Angel Round to Build Biomedical Visual Knowledge Base and SaaS Platform

VCBeat has learned that Yimu Vision, a leading provider of medical visualization solutions, recently completed an angel financing round worth tens of millions of yuan. The round was led by Zhongxi Fund, with Oufang Angel Fund participating as a co-investor. Yatai Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round. The funds are primarily intended to support Yimu Vision in building a biomedical visual knowledge base and an editable SaaS platform.

This round of financing has also brought the potential blue-ocean sector of “medical visualization” into the spotlight. What exactly is this sector? Why has Yimu Visual, as a player in this field, garnered investor favor? To address these questions, we interviewed Zhou Shuyang, founder of Yimu Visual, who is a former surgeon and popular medical illustrator.

Medical Visualization: An interdisciplinary field that integrates biomedical knowledge with visual communication techniques, making abstract biomedical information immediately comprehensible through illustrations, animations, and interactive technologies. Currently, as an emerging sector, it is experiencing rapid growth.

According to Zhou Shuyang, two factors are driving the rapid development of this field—

Overall, it is the inevitable result of the development of the image-reading era.In terms of information dissemination, visual formats such as images and videos are gaining increasing popularity among the general public. Currently, mainstream internet platforms in China, such as Douyin and Bilibili, are built around visual content. In specialized fields like healthcare, "medical visualization"—which leverages images, videos, and interactive technologies to present information—is also emerging as a significant development trend.

From a practical standpoint, the demand for efficient information dissemination is undoubtedly on the rise.Zhou Shuyang, who worked in the clinical surgery department of a tertiary hospital for seven years, has deep insights into this issue. He points out that the high barriers in the medical field partly stem from the inefficiency and outdated formats of information dissemination. Whether it is the training of professional physicians or medical science popularization for the general public, traditional text-based formats, while sufficiently precise in expression, are relatively weak in terms of communication efficiency and expressiveness. Visualization is an inevitable trend in the development of information dissemination, and there is substantial market demand for this highly efficient method of information delivery.

In fact, the current state of market development somewhat corroborates the existence of the aforementioned demand. In 2021, the penetration rate of healthcare and medical scenarios in future-oriented virtual reality technologies (involving 3D interaction, etc.) reached as high as 38%. Furthermore, data from the advertising industry offers a glimpse into the healthcare sector’s demand for customized visual content: in 2021, the global advertising market size was approximately $460 billion, with healthcare industry expenditures ranking seventh globally among all advertising sectors.

As the healthcare industry becomes increasingly market-oriented and specialized, visual products are undoubtedly emerging as the optimal differentiated competitive solution for medical brand upgrading, product promotion, and training and education, thanks to their efficient and intuitive communication methods and high recognizability. This trend has further propelled the previously overlooked sector of medical visualization into a highly promising field with significant growth potential.

As early as 2016, Zhou Shuyang’s team established the Yimu Visual brand, focusing on medical visualization. As an emerging sector, the industry was not without its pain points. Throughout its development, Yimu Visual has been systematically addressing these challenges.

First, the primary pain point stems from a shortage of medical illustration talent.

Worth mentioning is Zhou Shuyang’s own identity as an internet-famous medical illustrator. As early as 2017, he was a gastrointestinal surgeon at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine when he went viral online for “bringing a heart to life through illustration,” and he subsequently made multiple appearances on central state media outlets and variety shows broadcast by major provincial satellite TV stations. This exposure also enabled him to connect with a group of aspiring individuals interested in pursuing careers in medical illustration.

During the company’s establishment, it faced challenges in recruiting medical illustrators. However, “there were no professional training institutions for medical illustrators in China at that time. To secure suitable talent, the company ultimately decided to launch training programs, opting to train and cultivate talent internally rather than recruiting externally.”As a result, its online education platform, “Yimu Academy,” was established in May 2018.. Moreover, this platform currently plays a role in cultivating and supplying talent to the entire industry.It is reported that the “Yimu Academy” platform has cumulatively trained nearly 4,000 medical illustrators and animators.

Secondly, the second major pain point stems from the efficient production of high-quality content.

On the one hand, the production of high-quality content is inherently linked to top-tier talent. Meanwhile, Yimu Keshi’s dominant position in the industry is clearly unshakable.“Yimu Academy”Yimu Visual frequently recruits top-tier talent it has helped cultivate into its team. Furthermore, Yimu Visual has established an internal training system to enhance employee skills. Reportedly, Yimu Visual currently employs over 80 staff members, more than half of whom are medical visual designers with backgrounds in medicine; additionally, it engages over 150 external professional medical consultants. Undoubtedly, Yimu Visual boasts the largest team in the medical visualization sector and plays a pivotal role in the industry’s development.

On the other hand, the visualization content produced by the Yimu Vision team has already been validated by the market.Since 2019, Tencent Medical Encyclopedia, Baidu Health Medical Encyclopedia, and Xiaohe Medical Encyclopedia have all partnered with Yimu Visual.As a provider of medical visualization content services, Yimu Vision supplies such content to the aforementioned medical science popularization platforms. Taking Tencent Medical Dictionary as an example, Yimu Vision defined the overall visual style for its visualization content; furthermore, Yimu Vision provided Tencent Medical Dictionary with tens of thousands of high-quality, professional medical illustrations.Since 2021, leading medical device company Johnson & Johnson, Elsevier (the world’s largest scientific publisher), and renowned pharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics have established partnerships with Yimu Vision., Yimuke serves as a full-service medical branding provider, delivering high-quality, customized brand-related services to the aforementioned companies. Taking CanSino Biologics as an example, Yimuke provided comprehensive product launch planning and customized promotional materials for its novel inhalable vaccine.

To achieve high-quality content output with efficiency and meet the demands of major internet companies such as Tencent, Yimu Visual has gradually established a viable management system internally. Supported by this system, its team can produce 15,000 pieces of medical visualization assets annually. This further solidifies Yimu Visual’s position as the world’s largest provider of customized medical content and brand upgrade services.

2022 was a significant year for Yimu Vision.

Over the past year, Yimu Visual has also upgraded its strategic positioning—transitioning from a provider of customized medical visual content to a vision-led biomedical knowledge platform.

Behind the strategic upgrade lies Yimu Keshi’s deep industry insights into the field of medical visualization—

The overall market price for customized professional medical content services is high, and the customization process is time-consuming.While there is clear market demand, clients face challenges such as mismatched payment capacity and long production cycles. Although the quality of most medical assets or custom medical illustrations available on the market is subpar, the demand for premium, specialized content has been steadily growing. To address this market pain point, the Yimu Visual team aims to meet client needs by offering high-quality medical visualization materials at more affordable prices.

In light of this, Yimu Visual has undergone a strategic upgrade, aiming to move away from its previous business model that relied heavily on customization, and to establish a vision-led biomedical knowledge platform, striving to achieveA Scalable Business Model with Copyrightable Reusability.

The exploration of new business ventures also enables Yimu Vision to fully leverage its existing talent pool. Beyond delivering customized content for manufacturers, the Yimu Vision team can independently develop a biomedical visual knowledge base during their available time, thereby seizing commercialization opportunities more effectively. Meanwhile, in the process of building its biomedical knowledge platform, Yimu Vision encourages global users to contribute to the construction of the biomedical visual knowledge base and achieve monetization of knowledge. Building on this foundation, Yimu Vision better promotes industry development and meets the growing market demand.

It is reported that Yimu Vision’s Biomedical Visual Knowledge Base is steadily advancing the development of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary medical visualization knowledge network.

As a company with years of deep industry engagement, Yimu Vision exhibits a particularly pronounced Matthew effect. With the completion of its biomedical visual knowledge base, Yimu Vision will establish its own competitive moat. The infusion of capital from this round of financing will undoubtedly accelerate the development of its biomedical visual knowledge base and the deployment of related SaaS systems. Ultimately, Yimu Vision will play an indispensable role in the field of medical visualization.

Zhongxi Fund focuses on early- to mid-stage investments in the healthcare and wellness sector. Its team comprises seasoned investment banking professionals and experts with pharmaceutical backgrounds, specializing in capital operations such as investment and mergers and acquisitions. With offices established in Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Chongqing, the fund’s business coverage primarily spans the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai region and Southwest China. Adhering to an industry-oriented approach in selecting investment targets, Zhongxi Fund leverages its extensive resources in the biomedical industry to empower portfolio companies in securing subsequent financing, standardizing corporate operations, and integrating industrial resources. By accompanying these enterprises through their rapid growth, Zhongxi Fund aims to become a value creator in the biomedical industry.

Oufang Angels was established in 2018 by alumni of Zhejiang University (ZJU) in Hangzhou. The fund focuses on investing in pan-technology enterprises founded by ZJU alumni, faculty, and students. It has invested in over 80 outstanding companies founded by ZJU alumni. “Oufang” was the courtesy name of Mr. Zhu Kezhen, former President of Zhejiang University. Naming the firm Oufang serves as a tribute to President Zhu and as an inspiration for both Oufang Investments and entrepreneurs from the ZJU community. Oufang is not merely an investment institution; it is also a connector, supporter, and companion for ZJU alumni.

Yatai Capital is a leading financial advisory firm in China’s healthcare and wellness sector. Guided by industry development and clinical needs, it provides equity financing, investment and M&A, and technology collaboration advisory services to innovative medical enterprises. By the end of 2022, Yatai Capital had provided financing advisory services totaling several billion RMB to more than 20 innovative medical companies.