Shangyong Technology Secures CNY 100 Million Series C Funding to Accelerate Development of Single-Disease Management Insurance Products

VCBeat has learned at the earliest opportunity that,In August 2021, Shanghai Shangyong Technology Co., Ltd., a leader in insurance risk control and value-based health management, completed a C-round financing of hundreds of millions of yuan. The round was led by China Merchants Health, with Yuanyi Capital participating as a co-investor.

According to Xing Jing, founder of Shangyong Technology, the primary purpose of this financing round is to deepen its health management services for health insurance, “with the aim of helping insured customers access more valuable and effective medical services.”

Xing Jing told VCBeat,Health insurance has a relatively long cycle,Even one-year products face renewal issues,“As customers age, they will inevitably enter the disease phase. In this context, the most critical factor is to reach a consensus with customers and effectively manage the course of their diseases, thereby ensuring the long-term, sustainable delivery of products. ‘Therefore, Shangyong will continue to invest resources in deepening its health management services, particularly in disease-specific care pathway management.’”

In 2017, to address issues such as inadequate pre-underwriting risk control and the lack of refined customer operations in the insurance industry, Xing Jing assembled a highly capable team with expertise in insurance, technology, and healthcare, founded Shangyong Technology, and launched Xinji Risk Control, entering the Chinese life insurance market from the perspective of big data-based underwriting and risk management.

It is understood that the new machine risk control relies on an intelligent risk control engine and combines advanced big data technology capabilities to provide industry-level risk control solutions and technical services for commercial insurance companies and intermediaries, etc., enhancing insurance companies' risk pricing capabilities and product competitiveness, facilitating insurance companies in creating new business models and commercial forms.

“Applying uniform pricing and simplistic risk identification methods to all customers will ultimately lead to a distortion of the pricing system,” Xing Jing has publicly stated to the media. Shangyong’s risk control framework is designed to maximize risk management efficiency and expand the coverage of commercial insurance.

In the course of collaborating with multiple insurance companies, Xing Jing discovered that critical illness insurance products also face pain points on the claims side.

Therefore, in January 2019, Shangyong’s Xinji Anfu business was launched.

Xinji Anfu is a deposit-free hospitalization service launched by Shangyong for commercial health insurance covering inpatient medical care and critical illnesses. It aims to alleviate customers’ financial burden during hospital stays, enhance the competitiveness of insurance product services, and strengthen the connection between insurance companies and their clients.

“Customers can submit their applications first. If the assessment determines that the case falls within the scope of coverage for the upcoming confirmed insurance claim, and the hospitalization expenses are reasonable, the customer will not bear the cost of medical treatment,” said Xing Jing. Currently, Shangyong processes dozens of advance payment claims per day. “This figure is not insignificant.”

Furthermore, Shangyong has also targeted the health management sector by launching Xinji Health, a health management platform that offers services including medication purchasing, daily health consultations, health lectures, chronic disease management, and post-discharge follow-ups. “By collecting users’ medical examination data and integrating it with their daily lifestyle habits, we dynamically analyze potential risk factors to formulate personalized health intervention plans, thereby enabling effective monitoring and evaluation of health management outcomes.”

In general,Shangyong is a risk management service provider dedicated to building a one-stop, full-lifecycle risk management platform and constructing a new service ecosystem. It has achieved stratification of insured populations and alignment of risk with pricing.Developed a comprehensive solution featuring a holistic risk control framework encompassing product innovation and customer service, thereby penetrating all scenarios of health protection. This initiative enhances insurers’ product competitiveness and customer service experience, drives innovation in commercial health insurance, expands the supply capacity of insurance products, and provides strong momentum for the innovative upgrading of the insurance industry.

To date, Shangyong has cumulatively served over 70 insurance companies and nearly 500 life insurance products, providing policy risk control services to 20 million individuals.

However, Shangyong Technology did not stop there; instead, it chose to deepen its engagement in the industry, with single-disease management becoming its primary focus.

“Deepening single-disease management solutions to help the entire health insurance sector add new product liabilities, thereby helping customers better manage the course of their diseases, is the main purpose of this round of financing,” Xing Jing told VCBeat.This August, Shangyong has launched a single-disease management product for leukemia, targeting the pediatric population.

VCBeat has learned that,Shangyong has launched a leukemia management product named “Heart Guardian,” an exclusive insurance coverage for pediatric leukemia, available to children and adolescents aged 28 days to 17 years. To develop this product, Shangyong established exclusive partnerships with leading medical institutions and specialized leukemia experts in China. These experts have formulated standardized treatment guidelines and care pathways. Additionally, second opinions, multidisciplinary consultations, and genetic testing are introduced during the diagnostic phase to help customers achieve more precise diagnosis of leukemia subtypes, thereby facilitating access to more effective subsequent treatments. All medical expenses incurred throughout this process are fully covered under the benefits of this insurance product.

Xing Jing stated that in the process of providing whole-course disease management to clients, Shangyong will take responsibility for the progression of their conditions.

“Heart Guardian” Product Disease Management Service Schematic (Image provided by Shangyong Technology)

Regarding the rationale behind positioning its first single-disease management product for pediatric leukemia, Xing Jing stated that the decision was primarily driven by three considerations:

First is the value of commercial insurance. Xing Jing believes that the true value potential of commercial insurance stems from the long-term management of high-value customers,rather than ending with a single insurance policy covering medical expenses.

Therefore, it is crucial to establish and maintain trust with clients; one way to build this trust is by improving their life expectancy and meeting their expectations for health management.

“In this regard, the interests of parents, as the actual policyholders, are fully aligned with those of insurance companies, as both parties hope for the child’s survival in the unfortunate event of a health crisis,” said Xing Jing. She noted that parents—the target demographic for juvenile insurance products—can serve as one of the criteria for insurers to screen for long-term customers.

Secondly, social value.“Against the backdrop of China’s increasingly aging society, it is necessary to address issues such as elderly care and chronic disease management on one hand, while improving the survival rates of adolescents and children on the other,” said Xing Jing.Adolescents and children will become the backbone of future wealth creation, making critical illness insurance products for minors highly valuable in terms of both commercial insurance and social impact.

Finally, there is the market value in healthcare. “Interestingly, from a medical perspective, many pediatric diseases are associated with genetic defects, so gene therapy or immunotherapy has a higher likelihood of achieving breakthrough effects in this population, which is also consistent with the current development trends of frontier therapies in the overall healthcare market,” Xing Jing revealed to VCBeat.

“Through comprehensive management of the entire disease course, Shangyong is confident in improving clients’ survival expectations,” shared Xing Jing with VCBeat.Leukemia is merely the first disease category that Shang Yong has focused on; in the future, single-disease products targeting pediatric rare diseases, congenital disorders, and other conditions will be rolled out successively.

Notably, following the Series B financing round in August 2020, which was led by Noah Gopher Asset Management, with additional investment from existing shareholder Matrix Partners China and participation from Fanchuang Capital, this current round marks Shangyong’s fifth fundraising effort. In just four years since its founding, Shangyong has demonstrated strong fundraising capabilities.

Speaking of this, Xing Jing stated,Shangyong Technology’s competitive advantages are primarily reflected in three areas. First, it possesses robust underwriting and risk control capabilities, having established partnerships with nearly 100 insurance companies. Second, leveraging its strong claims processing capabilities, it has innovatively launched a claims advance payment service, which effectively alleviates patients’ financial burdens during medical treatment and enhances customer and insurer stickiness. Third, it enables effective disease management by integrating its underwriting and claims expertise. “Shangyong has the capability to incorporate new therapies or surgical procedures into product coverage and embed them within the underwriting process, thereby preventing the misuse of novel treatments.”

In addition,“Shangyong’s robust modeling capabilities, payment capacity, and the team’s in-depth research into cutting-edge therapies across the healthcare market, combined with its product design and development expertise, enable it to create new product liabilities for the market,” emphasized Xing Jing. “Future health insurance will be selling survival expectations, and Shangyong’s product design is precisely grounded in this philosophy.”

Dr. Zhang Wei, CEO of China Merchants Health, the lead investor in this round, stated that innovation in the healthcare sector encompasses not only technological and medical operational innovations, but also innovations in payment models. Guided by its strategic mission of “Technology-Led, Value-Driven Health,” China Merchants Health is accelerating the global implementation of diagnostic and therapeutic technologies while fostering a new ecosystem of health insurance technology. By adhering to the principle of “paying only for better clinical outcomes,” the company aims to expedite the translation of diagnostic and therapeutic advancements into patient benefits, thereby supporting the sustainable development of the healthcare system. China Merchants Health highly recognizes the Shangyong team’s strategic vision, broad capabilities, operational depth, and execution speed. It looks forward to further deepening collaboration to promote the adoption of more valuable technological applications through innovative products and services powered by new technologies.

Yang Ruirong, a partner at Yuanyi Capital, stated that the current health insurance market suffers from an imbalance characterized by heavy emphasis on marketing and insufficient focus on product development. Yuanyi Capital will approach health insurance investments primarily from a medical perspective. In Yuanyi Capital’s view, the significance of health insurance lies not only in risk hedging but also in enhancing access to high-quality medical products and services, thereby improving patients’ clinical outcomes and quality of life. Yuanyi Capital hopes that Shangyong can leverage its robust digital capabilities and deep industry insights to serve as a bridge connecting patients, healthcare providers, and insurers, thus contributing to the development of China’s health insurance industry.