Health Insurance Tech Firm CareVoice Secures Tens of Millions in Series A Funding
Recently, VCBeat learned that CareVoice, a health insurance technology company, has completed an A-round financing worth tens of millions of US dollars. This round was co-led by LUN Partners Group, an investment holding company, and an international investment management firm specializing in the financial services sector. DNA Capital, along with existing shareholders SOSV China Accelerator and Artesian Capital, participated as follow-on investors.
CareVoice is an insurtech company that provides consumers with reliable, community-sourced hospital ratings and recommendations for high-quality medical services through mobile social platforms and virtual health assistants. Additionally, CareVoice offers embedded SaaS solutions to insurance companies, helping to streamline their business processes and improve operational efficiency.
It is reported that following this round of financing, CareVoice plans to triple its team size over the next 12 months and achieve the following three primary objectives: further increase internal R&D investment, integrate more leading domestic and international health technology services, and upgrade CareVoice OS; further expand the sales and customer success teams to strengthen international business development; and further enhance insurance product innovation by collaborating with insurance companies to develop more new products, aiming to launch over ten new offerings focused on disease prevention and healthy behavior management.
Before founding CareVoice, Sebastien Gaudin, a native of France, spent 12 years at Sanofi. With a dual background in medicine and business, he developed unique insights into drug development and market operations. In 2011, Gaudin came to China to take on a management role at Sanofi China, where he was responsible for the diabetes sector. Over the following years, he connected with many senior figures in the healthcare industry, including hospital leaders and government officials. During this period, he gradually identified a gap in the Chinese healthcare market: patients lacked trust in hospitals, doctors, and the medical services provided. Gaudin decided to create an app that would establish a healthcare service evaluation system through broad user participation. Simply put, it aimed to be the “Dianping” of the healthcare sector or the “TripAdvisor” of travel—this was the original motivation behind Gaudin’s entrepreneurial venture.
In March 2014, CareVoice was established in Shanghai. The pilot version of CareVoice, initially launched in Shanghai, garnered over 10,000 reviews covering hospital services, physician consultations, and pharmaceuticals within just three months. To date, the platform has accumulated more than 300,000 registered users. Many users post reviews based on their personal medical experiences after receiving care at hospitals.
“But I underestimated the hardships of starting a business in China, especially as a foreign entrepreneur,” Gao Sai joked, recalling his entrepreneurial journey. Although CareVoice rapidly acquired a large user base, monetizing that traffic remained a challenge. Fortunately, CareVoice ultimately weathered the storm. In the early days of CareVoice, Gao Sai met Jan Velich, and they found themselves in immediate agreement on many aspects of the healthcare sector. Subsequently, Jan Velich served as an advisor to CareVoice before joining the company as a co-founder and Chief Business Officer (CBO).
Jan Velich has over 10 years of experience in healthcare and strategic consulting. Since coming to China in 2010, he has participated in more than 100 healthcare projects involving Chinese government agencies, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers, gaining an in-depth understanding of China’s healthcare system.
Neil, another co-founder of CareVoice, currently serves as Chief Product Officer. He has over 15 years of experience in product management and innovative design. Prior to joining CareVoice, he served as General Manager at Fitch, a global retail experience design consultancy.
Under the leadership of its three co-founders, CareVoice has gradually transformed into an insurtech enterprise, shifting its business focus from a standalone social networking app to health insurance products.
In the subsequent years, CareVoice secured successive rounds of capital support, completing a RMB 5 million angel round in early 2016 and a USD 2 million pre-A round in early 2018, with investments from SOSV, Haitao Group, and others.
Unlike health insurance companies, CareVoice does not directly offer health insurance products. Instead, it serves as a bridge connecting insurance companies, hospitals, and consumers. By partnering with insurers, CareVoice provides data-driven mobile SaaS solutions that leverage big data, artificial intelligence, and mobile internet technologies to create an all-in-one platform integrating insurance-related information consultations, daily basic health management, recommendations for optimal medical care pathways, and claims assistance. “The SaaS service model is user-centric, enabling us to deliver efficient and innovative solutions to insurance companies,” said Gao Sai. Meanwhile, for insurance policyholders, CareVoice provides relevant information such as addresses and medical service ratings for hospitals, clinics, and doctors affiliated with the insurers’ networks.
For ordinary app users, CareVoice primarily serves as a health management platform. Users can consult with CareVoice’s virtual health assistant, which was jointly developed by CareVoice and the U.S.-based company Sensely. Leveraging professional medical data from the Mayo Clinic, the system supports over 200 disease symptoms, incorporates more than 20,000 diagnostic case records, and draws on insights from over 5 million customer service call cases, enabling it to generate professional preliminary diagnostic assessment reports.
In China, choosing to launch a startup in the health insurance sector is not widely regarded as an attractive option. Currently, China still adheres to an insurance model dominated by government-led social medical insurance. Data from the official website of the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the "China Healthcare Development Report 2017" show that in 2016, commercial health insurance expenditures accounted for only 2% of total health spending, whereas this figure reached 33% in the United States and 10% in Germany in 2015.
In response, Gao Sai told VCBeat that challenges often come with opportunities. “In China, health insurance is still an emerging market, but precisely because of this, there are more possibilities to develop innovative and specialized products.” Gao Sai believes that as people’s medical needs increase, they will purchase commercial medical insurance to reduce healthcare expenses and access better medical services for conditions not covered by public health insurance. On the other hand, due to the public’s lack of understanding and trust in insurance companies, insurers are also willing to leverage CareVoice’s services to acquire more users.
Since 2012, commercial health insurance has become the fastest-growing segment in the insurance industry, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38%. ZhongAn Insurance pointed out that the total size of China’s mid-end medical insurance market will reach RMB 20 billion in 2018. “Currently, less than 10% of the population in China has purchased commercial health insurance, but we expect this figure to eventually reach 30%-40%,” predicted Gao Sai.
Currently, CareVoice’s solutions have been recognized and adopted by 15 domestic and international insurance companies, such as AXA Group, demonstrating their positive impact on insurance sales, user retention, and cost control.
Furthermore, CareVoice recently launched an innovative product, CareVoiceOS™. As the first healthcare “operating system” designed for insurance companies, CareVoiceOS™ provides end-to-end technical solutions to build an ecosystem of connected healthcare services. This enables insurers to design customized and competitive insurance plans that meet users’ growing demand for more cost-effective health services.
Gao Sai, Co-founder and CEO of CareVoice, stated, “This financing will significantly enhance CareVoice’s competitiveness and advance our mission to make the health insurance market more digital and human-centric. Our newly developed CareVoiceOS platform will effectively help insurers improve user experience and product appeal. Meanwhile, we are poised to enter new markets to transform the medical insurance experience for more policyholders. We are fortunate to have investors who provide both financial and strategic support.”
Furthermore, Gao Sai mentioned that CareVoice will soon spin off the business operations of the Jingchen™ Health Management Solution to further promote its development in mainland China and accelerate its launch in Hong Kong, thereby providing entrepreneurial teams with the first customized innovative health management solution.
Mr. Li Peilun, Chairman of Youlun Group, stated, “Digital transformation and service innovation in the insurance sector will become the next hotbed for growth, fostering the emergence of insurtech unicorns. Since its inception, CareVoice has been committed to driving digital transformation and service innovation for traditional insurance companies, and we are optimistic about its development in the Greater China region. Meanwhile, we will also assist CareVoice in expanding into overseas markets, bringing its mature technologies and solutions honed in China to Japan, Southeast Asia, and other regions.”
Luiz Henrique Noronha, Partner at DNA Capital, stated, “We have extensive investment experience in this field. CareVoice’s business model effectively addresses the pain points of health insurers as we understand them. We are delighted to support CareVoice in leveraging the rapid growth opportunities in both domestic and international health insurance markets to drive its business expansion. We also believe that CareVoice’s continuous innovation, particularly its recently launched CareVoiceOS platform, will effectively empower insurers to develop tailored and more competitive products.”