Anyiye Files IPO Prospectus: Former Top-Tier Hospital Doctor Launches Muscle Health Management Chain

Within just eight months, Anye Sports Massage Clinic has expanded its storefronts at a pace of nearly one new location per month, now totaling as many as8 stores.

Alongside the rapid expansion of this sports massage brand into the public eye, Huang Yongzeng, founder of the Anyiye brand, has also gained prominence. A physician from a Grade 3A hospital, he previously worked in the Department of Rehabilitation at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University, where he specialized in sports rehabilitation for over ten years and provided rehabilitative care to numerous Olympic champions, athletic stars, and entertainment celebrities.

Huang Yongzeng, Founder of the Anyiye Brand

“Professional athletes all have dedicated rehabilitation therapists who use sports massage before, during, and after exercise to help athletes achieve physical recovery, reduce sports injuries, and enhance athletic performance.”

Huang Yongzeng, who has been engaged in sports rehabilitation for decades, is acutely aware that subtle changes are underway: sports rehabilitation services, once reserved for athletes, are increasingly becoming a necessity for the general public. This shift is closely tied to the rise of the concept of fitness for all.

The outbreak in 2020 further heightened public awareness of personal health, prompting greater participation in fitness activities. However, improper exercise techniques often lead to sports-related injuries. The increased volume of certain orthopedic procedures—such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction, joint replacement, meniscus repair, ligament repair, cartilage repair, and fracture surgery—is, to some extent, attributable to patients’ inappropriate exercise behaviors. This rise in patient numbers has, in turn, driven growing demand for sports rehabilitation services.

Huang Yongzeng is providing sports massage to an Olympic champion.

However, “the superior physician treats disease before it arises.” Rather than waiting until patients suffer physical injuries from improper exercise techniques and ultimately require hospital treatment, it is better to nip the “disease” in the bud. In Huang Yongzeng’s view, “it is more meaningful to help the public prevent sports-related injuries or pain than to treat them after they occur.”

Drawing on his accumulated experience in the field of sports rehabilitation, Huang Yongzeng decided to develop sports massage techniques using professional rehabilitative medicine expertise. These techniques aim to help sports enthusiasts, office workers, and others address issues such as muscle tightness, soreness, and imbalance, thereby alleviating individual fatigue, preventing sports injuries and pain, and ultimately enhancing quality of life.

It is on this foundation that the Anyiye sports massage brand was born.

Positioned as a “muscle health management expert and guardian angel of sports wellness,” Anye’s concept of “sports massage” did not emerge out of thin air.

Huang Yongzeng noted that Julia Iafrate, a sports medicine physician and Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, defines sports massage as “manual manipulation of muscles and soft tissues by qualified professionals, with the aim of improving athletic performance or facilitating recovery.”

In fact, sports massage has a long history of development abroad. At the 1924 Paris Olympics, Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, who won five gold medals in track and field events, specifically acknowledged his personal masseur and attributed his victory to him. Elite athletes often have dedicated specialists to attend to their sports injuries and utilize sports massage to facilitate muscle relaxation and recovery during periods of physical fatigue. Over time, public-oriented services such as “sports rehabilitation” have also gradually evolved.

However, sports massage has not yet gained widespread adoption in China. This is partly due to a lack of public awareness; although the general population often experiences muscle soreness and fatigue from daily physical activity, they rarely proactively seek the assistance of sports massage therapists. Additionally, supply-side constraints play a significant role. High costs and limited accessibility remain key challenges that must be addressed for the broader dissemination of sports massage services.

To promote the development of “sports rehabilitation” and address issues related to patient access to services, Huang Yongzeng began making numerous attempts as early as 2017. After resigning from a tertiary Grade A hospital, he established the first sports rehabilitation center. However, problems arose one after another, such as difficulties in customer acquisition due to an immature market and challenges in replicating sports rehabilitation talent. These are also common issues faced by the industry.

As the concept of sports and exercise gains wider acceptance and the market’s receptivity to sports rehabilitation grows, Huang Yongzeng founded the Movement Specialist Academy in 2019 to address the talent shortage hindering the expansion of rehabilitation centers. The academy focuses on entry-level and advanced training for sports rehabilitation therapists. Additionally, Huang Yongzeng has gained new insights: On one hand, public understanding of rehabilitation is often rooted in disease management, with most patients seeking hospital care only after experiencing pain. This pattern leads to reduced patient flow and higher customer acquisition costs. On the other hand, while people commonly practice massage for relaxation, the term “massage” itself is often stigmatized.

Building on this understanding, Anye Sports Massage, established in October 2021, has pioneered an innovative light rehabilitation model aimed at alleviating muscle fatigue and relieving muscle tension. Early explorations enabled the establishment of an integrated industry-academia-research platform for sports health: the Rehabilitation Center is responsible for technology and product R&D, providing technical support to Anye; the Movement Specialist Academy focuses on cultivating rehabilitation professionals, ensuring a talent pipeline for Anye; while Anye serves as the consumer-facing interface, delivering related services to end users.

By establishing a standardized training system and service protocols, along with an information-based precision assessment framework, Anye is addressing the pain points that have long plagued the industry. In the process of resolving these challenges, Anye has pioneered the standardization of sports massage techniques, packaging them into product-service offerings for consumers. Meanwhile, it has innovatively launched brick-and-mortar sports massage clinics, rapidly expanding its presence in the Guangzhou market.

Currently, Anyiye primarily serves sub-healthy individuals and sports enthusiasts who are prone to muscle tightness, strain, soreness, and injuries. Unlike traditional massage, Anyiye is grounded in anatomical science. It combines stretching guidance with breath-coordinated pressure techniques to reboot the body’s rhythm through fascial movement. This approach helps alleviate fatigue, restore the elasticity and function of muscles and fascia, thereby effectively reducing sports-related injuries and enhancing both athletic and work performance.

During the service process, An Yiye typically assesses clients’ muscle and soft tissue characteristics, as well as their various exercise and work habits, to develop personalized sports massage plans and low-compensation pattern correction training methods, thereby addressing the issues faced by each individual.

Compared to rehabilitation centers, it effectively addresses key challenges such as the training of rehabilitation professionals, customer acquisition, and operations. In contrast to other massage industry organizations, Anye’s team is composed of physicians, rehabilitation therapists, and coaches, bringing extensive clinical experience. This enables Anye to achieve a “dimensional reduction strike” by applying the organizational standards of the rehabilitation field to teams in the massage industry. According to Huang Yongzeng, customer recognition of Anye is currently very high. From a broader market perspective, Anye covers a wide audience base, with sufficiently high consumption frequency among its target demographic.

"In fact, to ensure the standardized implementation of store operations and management, Anyiye stores have established a customer-need-oriented standardized product system, a customer-satisfaction-oriented internal management system, a job-training system and an educational system for continuous capability enhancement aimed at improving employee job competency, as well as a goal-oriented performance appraisal and compensation system. Through a complete closed-loop management system for service operation standardization, they achieve refined operational management."

Interestingly, An Yiye is not a foreign brand as many had assumed. In an interview, Huang Yongzeng revealed that “An Yiye” is a homophone of the Cantonese phrase “an yat ye,” which means “to press once.” This naming choice reflects Huang’s Guangdong roots and his desire to highlight Cantonese culture. It also underscores the brand’s original mission: to safeguard the health and well-being of the local community.

In June 2022, Anyiye secured angel-round financing. After establishing a multi-point presence in Guangzhou, the company is gradually transitioning from safeguarding the health and well-being of people in Guangzhou to protecting those in other regions across China.

In its strategic plan, the company stated its ambition to open 100 stores nationwide within the next five years, gradually establishing itself as the leading brand in China’s sports massage sector. As part of Anyiye’s expansion strategy, it aims to broaden its market coverage by incorporating company-owned stores, franchised outlets, and partner-operated locations, while sequentially developing regional distributors. To safeguard store profitability, the company also plans to set a protected radius of 3 kilometers around each outlet.

Its franchise strategy has begun to yield results. The first franchisee joined in January 2022 and expanded its operations by opening additional outlets in July, further validating that Anye’s technological products not only empower athletes but also support franchisees in business expansion.

It is reported that on August 6 this year, Anyiye will invite Olympic champions, sports celebrities, and entrepreneurs to attend its brand launch event. While exploring new developments in the industry, the company will further unveil a new chapter in its growth.

Huang Yongzeng is undoubtedly highly optimistic about future development prospects. He noted that under the wave of national fitness, the number of people engaging in sports is steadily increasing, leading to a growing demand for sports rehabilitation services and support. Furthermore, as rehabilitation technologies penetrate the mass market, it undoubtedly signifies vast market potential. An Yiye’s unique light-rehabilitation business model will also thrive in this process.