Shukun Technology Secures RMB 700 Million in Funding to Accelerate 'Digital Human' Platform Development

It is reported that in late July 2021, SHUKUN completed a new round of financing amounting to RMB 700 million. Investors included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Primavera Capital Group, Sequoia Capital China, Yuan Yi Capital, Jane Street Asia, Ruizhi Capital, WT Focus on China Fund, and Future Qichuang Fund.

This latest funding round comes just six months after the company raised nearly RMB 1 billion last year. Existing investors include Huagai Capital, Sequoia Capital China, 5Y Capital, CCV (Chuangshi Partners), Qiming Venture Partners, BOC International, CCB International, China Reinsurance Group, and CICC Pucheng. Continued backing from leading investors not only validates the immense potential of the AI healthcare industry but also solidifies SHUKUN’s competitive advantages.

Capital flows reflect, to a certain extent, the current state of the industry. Since 2019, industrial clustering has begun to emerge in the medical AI sector. During this phase, two mainstream trends have become apparent: first, substantial capital has increasingly concentrated in leading medical AI companies, making it more difficult for small and medium-sized startups to secure financing; second, giants from sectors such as medical devices, health check-ups, and insurance have entered the medical AI landscape through various means, including equity investment, platform development, and collaborative R&D. Both trends underscore the inherent potential of the medical AI industry.

SHUKUN is positioned at the confluence of two major trends: it has achieved rapid growth fueled by capital investment, while simultaneously accelerating the commercialization of its solutions through the establishment of diverse platform ecosystems. During this phase, the company has begun to cover imaging entry points and is advancing toward the integration of diagnostic and therapeutic workflows, upgrading its former AI-based medical image processing capabilities into a platform-level capability for AI-driven multimodal medical data processing that encompasses both imaging and text.

In 2021, SHUKUN Technology unveiled its “Digital Human” initiative for the first time at the China Medical Equipment Fair (CMEF). As the flagship product of the “Digital Human” series, “Digital Heart” features an AI solution for coronary artery stenosis that became the first to obtain a Class III medical device registration certificate from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and subsequently secured the EU MDR CE mark, making it the only coronary AI product to hold both NMPA and CE certifications. Meanwhile, SHUKUN’s AI solution for pneumonia was also among the first to receive the EU MDR CE certification. Currently, SHUKUN Technology holds more than 10 medical device registration certificates, covering critical conditions affecting the heart, brain, lungs, and abdomen, thereby establishing itself as the AI enterprise with the largest number of regulatory approvals in the medical AI sector.

This round of financing is aimed at accelerating the expansion of new capabilities. According to SHUKUN, the newly raised funds will be invested in the research and development of its "Digital Human" platform, significantly covering major critical acute and chronic disease areas; continuously improving the product matrix for digital heart, brain, chest, bone, and abdomen; and speeding up the R&D of other AI-assisted diagnostic and therapeutic product lines for "digital organs," thereby accelerating the deployment and application of the Digital Human in the smart hospital construction process across China.

“Digital Human” is SHUKUN’s platform-oriented vision for imaging AI.

SHUKUN’s previously developed coronary CTA, one-stop stroke solution, and liver MRI have each achieved breakthroughs in their respective clinical scenarios. However, the next generation of AI-powered products must transcend the limitations of single departments and single modalities. By focusing on patients’ physiological functions and adopting a holistic perspective, these solutions will deliver more precise and convenient smart healthcare services.

Using this as a starting point, SHUKUN has integrated its digital products for the heart, brain, chest, abdomen, and musculoskeletal system—namely “Digital Heart,” “Digital Brain,” “Digital Chest,” “Digital Abdomen,” and “Digital Musculoskeletal”—to establish the “infrastructure” of the “Digital Human.” In the context of multimodal data, each component of this infrastructure must be capable of delivering comprehensive solutions.

Further subdivided, SHUKUN’s Digital Human platform is powered by imaging acquisition techniques such as non-contrast cardiac CT combined with CT angiography, non-contrast chest CT, non-contrast and contrast-enhanced head and neck CT, cerebral perfusion CT, and non-contrast and contrast-enhanced liver MRI. It encompasses intelligent imaging solutions for multiple anatomical regions, including the cardiovascular system, cerebrovascular system, lungs, liver, and musculoskeletal system.

As the gateway to the hospital-level intelligent imaging platform, the Digital Human Platform has become a critical entry point for diagnosing major acute and chronic diseases. Currently, it is applicable to multiple clinical scenarios, including coronary heart disease, cerebral infarction, tumors, trauma, chest pain centers, stroke centers, and cardiology specialties. This has established a multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment model supported by the imaging platform, ultimately forming a comprehensive hospital-level intelligent imaging solution.

Leveraging SHUKUN’s “Digital Heart” product, launched in early 2018, we have gained some insight into the development of digital human technology. By integrating products such as coronary AI solutions, intelligent CT-based calcium scoring assessment, CT-FFR, FAI, and intelligent TAG assessment, the “Digital Heart” family has been formed. These tools can be used to build diagnostic models based on multimodal data, meeting physicians’ specific individual needs while also delivering comprehensive solution outputs.

Taking Beijing Anzhen Hospital as a case example, 98% of its coronary CTA cases are processed using SHUKUN’s products. Xu Lei, Director of the Department of Radiology at Beijing Anzhen Hospital, stated, “Beijing Anzhen Hospital performs over 1,000 coronary CTA examinations per week, placing an extremely high workload on radiologists. SHUKUN’s AI assists physicians by automating 3D reconstruction, interpretation, and the generation of structured reports, thereby improving work efficiency.”

In 2021, SHUKUN launched its AI-powered liver MRI product, jointly developed by researchers including the team led by Professor Yang Zhenghan, Director of the Department of Radiology at Beijing Friendship Hospital. The product aims to address the complexities of diagnosing liver diseases. Professor Yang Zhenghan pointed out, “Globally, only a few published papers have addressed liver MRI combined with AI, and these studies have focused on single tasks. The liver MRI AI system represents a comprehensive diagnostic solution, holding promise for breakthroughs in the intelligent MRI-based diagnosis of focal liver lesions.”

To date, SHUKUN has spent nearly four years developing its Digital Human platform. Although it is still some distance from offering a complete solution, the platform has already demonstrated significant value in healthcare institutions, as evidenced by the adoption of its single-organ products. After all, patients need only undergo a single scan of a specific organ to screen for a wide range of common conditions. This approach effectively reduces diagnostic and screening costs, leveraging AI to realize the true essence of the traditional Chinese medical philosophy that “the superior physician prevents disease before it occurs.”

For a long time, most people have viewed imaging AI as an automated image processing tool, primarily used to help physicians automatically detect conditions such as pulmonary nodules and macular degeneration, thereby providing clinical recommendations. However, SHUKUN’s initiatives following multiple rounds of financing have gradually prompted us to reconsider this perspective.

On one hand, medical AI companies are extending their capabilities from imaging to downstream processes, enabling them to provide effective diagnostic recommendations and even assist physicians with surgical planning and navigation during subsequent procedures. This means that medical AI products have the capacity to optimize clinicians’ workflows by eliminating cumbersome steps in the traditional diagnostic process and helping physicians analyze imaging data more comprehensively and thoroughly. In other words, AI will shift the focus of physicians’ work, allowing them to dedicate more time to tasks beyond image interpretation.

On the other hand, the capabilities of medical AI may reshape our approach to building models for cancer prevention and control. As a country with a high burden of cancer, China has tens of millions of cancer patients. However, many are diagnosed at intermediate or advanced stages. This is primarily due to two factors: first, a lack of public awareness regarding early screening; and second, the sheer number of cancer types that individuals may develop makes it impractical for the average person—constrained by time, energy, and financial resources—to undergo comprehensive examinations to systematically rule out potential early-stage tumors.

The emergence of the digital human is poised to reshape this landscape. This solution integrates morphological and functional disease detection to generate disease risk predictions, leveraging structured anatomical, physiological, and pathological databases to establish an imaging platform-supported multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment model. In practical application, a single scan of a patient’s suspected organ can screen for a wide range of common conditions. This signifies that, beyond early screening itself, the process involves fewer steps and lower costs, thereby enhancing the feasibility of early screening. With such convenient methods, residents are no longer deterred by cumbersome examinations.

Therefore, the significance of medical AI for physicians lies not in replacing them, but in optimizing their workflow to help them maximize their professional value; for patients, it does not replace the traditional diagnostic methods of inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation with cold, impersonal interactions, but rather provides a simpler means to facilitate earlier disease detection.

From this perspective, the demand for medical AI is not innate; rather, it requires physicians and patients to adapt to this transformation. Therefore, having endured the challenging penetration phase, companies that remain stand to gain significant growth opportunities as physicians and patients gradually come to accept the presence of artificial intelligence.

Judging from the investor lineup in this round of financing, the appearance of renowned international investment institutions such as Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Primavera Capital, and Jane Street Asia behind SHUKUN may signal its determination to expand into overseas markets.

In fact, prior to obtaining the Class III medical device certification issued by China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for its “AI-Assisted Triage Software for Vascular Stenosis in Coronary CT Angiography Images,” SHUKUN had already secured the EU MDR CE certificate for its Pneumonia AI and the EU MDR CE certificate for its Coronary CT AI. SHUKUN has long been strategizing for overseas markets. With capital support, the company may now have gained the capability to rapidly establish an AI ecosystem abroad.

Furthermore, Sequoia Capital China, a star venture capital firm, increased its investment in this funding round, demonstrating its recognition of the investment value in the AI healthcare sector. At the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Neil Shen, Global Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital, stated in his keynote speech: “SHUKUN is the world’s first technology company to obtain regulatory approval for an AI-assisted diagnostic certificate for coronary artery stenosis. It can reduce the time required for coronary diagnosis from 30 minutes to just 2–3 minutes. Its AI-powered products for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular CT diagnostics and liver MRI diagnostics have been deployed in over 800 hospitals, significantly improving the work efficiency of radiologists.”

This describes a key aspect of the value that SHUKUN presents to the external world. From the perspective of SHUKUN’s future product roadmap and the platform value of its Digital Human, the company is poised to effectively engage in various stages of diagnosis, treatment, and health management—including prevention, consultation, treatment, medication, and rehabilitation—as well as in areas such as scientific research, education and training, and hospital internal management.

From the development trends of the medical AI industry, leading companies have gradually reached the late stages of the primary market and are preparing to enter the secondary market. In 2021, Keya Medical and Airdoc successively filed their prospectuses, and Infervision was reported by the media to have initiated the process for listing in Hong Kong. Does SHUKUN also have such plans?

Looking back at SHUKUN, a medical AI company that built its foundation on multiple original innovations, each step it has taken seems to have garnered the industry’s greatest attention. The latest data show that various product lines under SHUKUN’s Digital Human Platform are being used with high stickiness in more than 1,000 hospitals across China. From this perspective, SHUKUN may be devoting greater efforts to capturing market adoption. After all, once regulatory approvals are secured, the player that captures a larger market share holds greater potential for large-scale commercial penetration—this is the fundamental value proposition of AI enterprises.

According to SHUKUN, the company will next leverage the combined power of AI and internet platforms to fulfill AI’s proper role in addressing the diagnostic capacity gaps at the primary care level, promoting the downward flow of high-quality medical resources, and alleviating the severe shortage of primary healthcare professionals. It also aims to harness public welfare initiatives to use AI technology in facilitating early screening, diagnosis, and treatment for patients at the primary care level, continuously improving the accessibility of diagnostic services, thereby enhancing the overall health and well-being of the population.

Therefore, with ample capital backing, SHUKUN has the confidence to focus on its customers and products themselves. By the same token, for AI products to gain recognition in the medical community, it is not merely financial support that matters, but rather their ability to optimize and innovate medical practices and workflows.

This is precisely what SHUKUN is currently doing.