WeCloud AI Secures RMB 100 Million in New Funding Round and Launches AI-Powered Custom Clear Aligner Brand 'AI SMILE Xiangbei'

VCBeat has learned at the earliest opportunity that,Weiyun, an industrial internet company specializing in customized AI solutions for digital dentistry, recently announced a new round of financing amounting to RMB 100 million, invested by multiple overseas family offices and listed companies.. According to Dr. Liu, founder and CEO, the funds raised in this round will be primarily used forContinue to advance the intelligent upgrading of products, as well as the promotion and enhancement of the clear aligner brand “Xiangbei.”

“Weiyun AI & Robotics” is a medical intelligence company centered on robotics and artificial intelligence technologies, featuring its own unmanned smart factory and offering comprehensive digital solutions for the dental industry.Featuring over 1,000 SKUs, covering multiple dental medical fields including implantology, orthodontics, aesthetic dentistry, and prosthodontics.

Since its inception, Weiyun has been highly favored by investment institutions for its intelligent dental healthcare service model spanning the entire network and its fully self-developed flexible smart factory. In 2019, it secured over RMB 100 million in investments from prominent investors including Professor Wang Tianmiao, Director of the Robotics Institute at Beihang University, Yarui Capital, Zhiyou Jinmiao, Boiling Point Capital, and Focus Media, demonstrating strong market potential and significant commercial value.

Investors in this round stated, “Weiyun has effectively integrated artificial intelligence, edge computing, and modern medicine, pioneering an unmanned intelligent manufacturing model for dental materials, restructuring the dental materials supply chain, and establishing the most comprehensive product portfolio in the industry. Currently,”Weiyun Has Already Accumulated Dental User Data at the Million-Level Scale, drawing on the “Meituan model,” it has built an efficient and precise offline promotion team, with strong accumulation of both online and offline channels. It also holds potential for high-end import substitution, offering significant growth opportunities in the two major sectors of dentistry and medical aesthetics.”

Professor Wang Tianmiao of Beihang University, Dean of the Zhongguancun Zhiyou Research Institute, stated: “Nine years ago, Weiyun began by developing top-tier, core robotic control hardware and software, algorithms, and high-end five-axis simultaneous universal equipment. By establishing graphics, imaging, and artificial intelligence learning networks, it has formed a relatively complete technological barrier. Leveraging these core technical advantages, it subsequently entered the fields of medical fast-moving consumer goods, including clinical restorative medicine and clear aligner orthodontics.”By directly serving B-end clinics and C-end consumers, Weiyun has established a comprehensive product customization and intelligent fulfillment system, with significant growth potential in the future.。”

A Tiny Tooth Is Leveraging a Healthcare Consumer Market Worth Hundreds of Billions, Even Trillions.

Source: Qianzhan Industry Research Institute; Graphic by VCBeat

In recent years, with the continuous rise in per capita consumption levels and the deepening penetration of the holistic health concept, people have devoted greater attention to oral health, ushering China’s oral care market into a “golden age” of development. According to data from Qianzhan Industry Research Institute,In 2019, the market size of China's dental healthcare industry reached RMB 103.5 billion, officially surpassing the one-trillion-yuan threshold.

Nevertheless, the gap between the scale of China’s domestic oral care industry and that of developed Western countries remains significant. The “2020 White Paper on the Aesthetic Dentistry Economy,” jointly released by Saky, a professional oral care brand, and Sina Weibo, indicates that China’s oral care market size ranges from RMB 103.5 billion to RMB 121.5 billion, yet per capita spending on oral care amounts to only RMB 75–87. These figures clearly demonstrate that while Chinese consumers are placing greater emphasis on dental health, their level of attention still lags considerably behind international standards. Consequently, given its user base of 1.4 billion people and substantial untapped potential, China’s oral care market holds immense room for growth and innovation.

The overall oral care market has entered a phase of rapid development, but which specific niche segment is more favored by the market? According to the "2020 White Paper on Oral Healthcare" released by VCBeat Institute, the primary concerns of current oral care consumers are teeth discoloration, misaligned teeth, and dental caries/cavities. Among oral health issues faced by consumers, medically related problems such as wisdom tooth pain and dental caries/cavities are no longer the main sources of concern; instead,Dental issues related to the aesthetic appearance of the oral cavity, such as insufficient tooth whiteness, misaligned teeth, and smile aesthetics, have become the most pressing concerns for dental consumers today.

With the continuous evolution of market demand, dental services have gradually shifted from treatment and restoration to a focus on aesthetics and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), making clear aligner orthodontics a “gold mine” in the dental industry. According to a report by Frost & Sullivan, in terms of retail sales revenue,The global clear aligner orthodontics market grew from $4 billion in 2015 to $13.1 billion in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35%.Among these factors, the rapid growth of the invisible orthodontics market in developing countries, led by China, is the primary driver of global market expansion.

In 2019, China’s clear aligner orthodontics market became the second-largest in the world. In terms of retail sales revenue, the market size grew rapidly from USD 200 million in 2015 to USD 1.4 billion in 2019, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56%. The number of clear aligner orthodontic cases in China increased from 47,800 in 2015 to 303,900 in 2019, with a CAGR of 58.8%.

The data consistently points to one fact: under the full impetus of the “appearance economy,” China’s orthodontics market is poised for robust growth and is expected to become a core growth driver in the dental healthcare sector.

While the enormous market demand provides enterprises with new directions and opportunities, it also imposes higher requirements on companies operating in this sector, all of which are tailored to address the pressing social issues of the current stage.

In China’s dental sector, development is primarily constrained by the following four factors:

First, there is a shortage of talent, and the training cycle is long and challenging.Talent is a key factor influencing industry development. However, the current situation in China’s dental sector is that the pace of training excellent dentists falls far short of market demand. This has spurred the rapid development of artificial intelligence and big data solutions for medical standardization, such as AI simulation and AI-based case learning.

Using the dentist-to-population ratio as an indicator, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a ratio of 1:5,000. However, China’s current dentist-to-population ratio is less than 1:8,000, significantly lower than both the levels in other developed countries and the WHO’s recommended value. Furthermore, in terms of the number of dentists per million people, China currently has fewer than 100, lagging considerably behind developed nations in Europe and the United States. Consequently, there remains a substantial market gap in China regarding the quantity of dental professionals and their training.

Second, dental raw materials are predominantly imported.According to authoritative data, the prevalence of dental and maxillofacial deformities in China has exceeded 70%, with a substantial patient population suffering from oral diseases. In addition to low public awareness of oral health, the high cost of dental care has become a key barrier limiting patients’ access to treatment.

Source: VBInsight; Chart by VCBeat

The “trigger” behind its high costs is precisely the reliance on foreign raw materials and the lagging state of manufacturing processes. Dr. Liu Peng told VCBeat, “As China’s dental industry started relatively late, it lacks relevant core technologies, with most processes still relying on manual labor and raw materials primarily dependent on imports. This has kept domestic dental market prices persistently high. Weiyun is committed to empowering this business model with robotics and artificial intelligence, akin to Tesla’s approach, while addressing the localization of core raw materials.”

Third, the production cycle is lengthy, resulting in a poor patient experience.In the field of dental treatment, due to individual physiological differences, related products need to be specially customized according to each patient’s specific conditions. However, currently, many dental hospitals primarily rely on manual processes and collaborate with traditional manufacturers for product supply.

“The specific collaboration process involves the hospital first finalizing the implementation plan, which is then consolidated and communicated to the manufacturer. Production relies on manual labor, after which the finished products are shipped to the hospital. This entire workflow entails numerous manual steps, resulting in extremely low overall efficiency. Typically, it takes anywhere from half a month to a full month from plan formulation to product pickup by the hospital, leading to prolonged patient wait times and a suboptimal overall healthcare experience.”“In contrast, Weiyun’s intelligent unmanned factory can be delivered in an average of just 48 hours!”

The market size has reached the hundred-billion level, yet potential issues persist. Therefore, for companies deeply entrenched in this sector, those who can rapidly propose solutions will be the first to seize the competitive high ground.

Based on this, Weiyun AI, which focuses on oral care services, has begun to ramp up its efforts andIn 2020, the clear aligner brand “Xiangbei” was officially launched, adopting a direct collaboration model between its AI-powered intelligent platform and dental clinics. To date, it has successfully delivered tens of thousands of cases.

Tracing back to the roots, what operational model has enabled “Xiangbei” to rapidly capture the market in a short period of time?

First, we leverage our robust product, technology, and operations teams to continuously enhance product quality and intelligent delivery capabilities.As a technology-driven enterprise, Weiyun has built an international team whose core members are PhDs, master’s degree holders, and medical experts from the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, France, India, and other countries. The company’s founder, Dr. Liu Peng, previously worked at renowned corporations such as Microsoft, holds an EMBA from Tsinghua University, and has a proven track record of successful entrepreneurship. Furthermore, Professor Wang Tianmiao from Beihang University and Professor Gao Jian from Tsinghua University provide strategic guidance for the company’s technological development and business operations.

Leveraging its robust R&D team, Weiyun has secured nearly 100 patents with fully independent intellectual property rights, gradually establishing core competitiveness within the industry.

Second, build a rare, fully closed-loop C2M ecosystem that makes dental care simple, efficient, and truly “what you see is what you get.”Weiyun AI builds a fully closed-loop C2M ecosystem through its proprietary hardware and software, cloud infrastructure, smart factories, and supply chain. It provides medical institutions, hospitals, and clinics with more precise and comprehensive technologies, lowering the barrier for small clinics to adopt advanced equipment, while enhancing consultation efficiency and AI-driven patient acquisition. For patients, this translates to shorter treatment times, reduced pain and waiting periods, making dental and medical aesthetic care truly “what you see is what you get.”

Taking “Xiangbei” as an example, Weiyun leverages data from millions of users to simulate the clinical orthodontic process and the patterns and steps of tooth movement via AI, thereby calculating and generating aligner models for the entire orthodontic treatment cycle. Weiyun’s dentists then fine-tune the digital treatment plan for each patient through a C2M (Customer-to-Manufacturer) system, with final production and delivery carried out by intelligent factories at micron-level precision.

3. Establish a fully automated smart factory, reducing the production time per unit by 90%.Weiyun AI leverages an intelligent factory ecosystem comprising a digital dental industry cloud SaaS, MaaS, and a matrix of robotic terminals—including proprietary additive and subtractive intelligent endpoints. By employing a “fully digital, fully intelligent, and fully informatized” dental care service model alongside its core proprietary technologies, Weiyun AI enables the automated manufacturing of a comprehensive range of dental products with minimal human intervention across the entire production workflow, covering medical scenarios such as implantology, cosmetic dentistry, orthodontics, and prosthodontics.

“Xiangbei” is precisely produced in this fully automated smart factory. Weiyun holds hundreds of invention patents in AI, which are extensively applied in practical processes ranging from intraoral point cloud scanning and AI simulation to AI-driven tooth arrangement and AI-automated production. In the post-pandemic era, Weiyun’s advantages have become even more pronounced: orders that typically require 300 to 500 workers can be completed by Weiyun with only dozens of staff. This approach significantly reduces manual involvement, yields higher product precision, and achieves a yield rate exceeding 97%, far surpassing the industry average.

Empowered by core technologies and relying on the Weiyun AI Online Customization Service Platform and the Smart Cloud Factory.Weiyun AI shortens the implementation cycle for restorative and cosmetic dentistry to 1–2 days, reduces single-item production time by 90%, saves 80% in labor costs, and significantly improves the utilization rate of expensive consumables., reducing unnecessary waste.

As of now, Weiyun relies on cutting-edge products and large-scale market channels,The service has covered 20,000 clinics across China and initiated clinical collaborations with multiple tertiary specialized hospitals.

As an innovative enterprise established less than four years ago, Weiyun has achieved remarkable success in both product development and market penetration. However, this is not the endpoint for Weiyun; the company plans to implement strategic deployments in the future, striving to become China’s comprehensive “Invisalign” for the dental market. This ambition is underpinned by Weiyun’s delivery of a broader portfolio than Invisalign, encompassing more products in dental implants, orthodontics, medical aesthetics, and prosthodontics, with coverage exceeding 1,000 SKUs.

First, persist in the iterative innovation of technology.For a technology-driven enterprise, the continuous optimization and rapid iteration of core technologies serve as the driving force behind its sustained growth and are key to maintaining its competitive edge in the industry. Therefore, Weiyun AI will prioritize R&D efforts in the future, leveraging its robust research team and collaborating with authoritative institutions within the industry to jointly overcome technical barriers and gradually align with leading global technologies.

Next is to further increase market share.According to surveys, there are currently nearly 100,000 dental medical institutions in China, and Weiyun AI’s service coverage has reached 20%, securing a significant market share. Nevertheless, substantial room for market growth remains. In light of this, the company will expand its market reach by refining its sales team and improving distribution channels, thereby further increasing its market share and establishing brand equity domestically.

Finally, reverse empowerment provides patients with full-cycle services.Mr. Liu Peng stated that Weiyun AI is dedicated to providing comprehensive solutions for intelligent cloud-based manufacturing and a C2M operational platform for the medical dental sector, positioning itself as a true closed-loop industrial internet company. By leveraging artificial intelligence technology, Weiyun AI delivers smart, highly efficient, and customized full-lifecycle dental services to end-user patients. Moving forward, the company will continue to enhance and solidify its technological advantages through core R&D, further breaking foreign technological monopolies and ushering in a new era of globalized customization for industrial internet-enabled medical products in the oral health field.

In the field of clear aligner orthodontics, Invisalign has become an industry giant through its disruptive innovation model, wielding significant influence in both product and technology domains.

For Weiyun AI, Invisalign has long served as a role model on its entrepreneurial journey, guiding the company to continually scale new heights. At present, Weiyun AI’s primary objective is to catch up with Invisalign; however, looking ahead, the company aims to surpass Invisalign through relentless efforts and emerge as the next giant in the dental industry, leveraging technology to empower the entire oral healthcare service sector.