Weimai Secures $100 Million Series Financing Led by IDG Capital to Advance Localized Internet Healthcare Services

Recently, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) learned at the earliest opportunity thatWeimai Announces Completion of New Round of Financing, Raising $100 MillionThis Round of FinancingLed by IDG Capital,Existing shareholders, including Qianji Capital, Matrix Partners China, Yuanjing Capital, and Source Code Capital, participated in the follow-on investment.

Since its establishment in 2015, Weimai has been dedicated to the internet healthcare sector, promoting the application of new technologies and innovative service models.Over the past four years, Weimai has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in financing from capital giants including IDG Capital, Qianji Capital, Matrix Partners China, Yuanjing Capital, and Source Code Capital, continuing to lead the new generation of “Internet + Healthcare” services.Regarding the use of proceeds from this round of financing, Qiu Jialin, Founder and CEO of Weimai, stated that the funds will be primarily allocated to the following three areas:

First, continue to expand the advantage in localized medical resources, accelerate urban layout, and expand cooperative cities and hospitals;

Second, we will continue to drive the upgrading of innovative services and technological iterations, aiming to break through in "innovative healthcare service operations" by establishing a closed-loop healthcare service system.

Third, continue to refine and build a more professional and efficient talent pipeline, and improve the business segments.

However, how effective are Weimai’s current internet-based localized services? Furthermore, among the emerging internet healthcare projects launched in 2015–2016, few stood out with notable highlights; most attention went to several established players. As a distinctive company focusing on localized internet healthcare services, what has enabled Weimai to win the favor of investors?

Healthcare reform is a major livelihood project. “Internet + Healthcare” has become a national key strategy, with clear regulatory policies for internet hospitals, and local governments are beginning to embrace them. A series of supporting national policies have been intensively introduced, explicitly encouraging medical institutions to leverage information technologies such as the internet to expand the scope and content of healthcare services, and to build an integrated online-offline healthcare service model covering pre-consultation, during-consultation, and post-consultation phases.

Since its establishment, Weimai has actively responded to the national encouragement and call for innovation in “Internet + Healthcare,” positioning itself as a “localization-based, trust-driven doctor-patient service platform” and leveraging the Weimai platform to forge new localized trust-based relationships between doctors and patients. On a city-by-city basis, it builds local one-stop healthcare service platforms.

Regarding the development of “city-level healthcare service platforms,” Qiu Jialin, founder of Weimai, stated that Weimai differs from traditional internet healthcare models, which simply shift doctors’ services from offline to online. Instead, Weimai’s approach involves hospitals taking the lead, with enterprises responsible for platform construction and in-depth operations. Weimai aims to deliver innovative healthcare services by collaborating with governments or partnering with local medical consortia, healthcare groups, and major public hospitals. “We fully embrace public hospitals, engage in deep collaboration with them, and empower them, rather than seeking to disrupt them,” said Qiu Jialin.

“The development pattern of enterprises, both present and future, must align with the direction and logic of healthcare reform.” Qiu Jialin further elaborated that the rationale behind tiered diagnosis and treatment, as well as the objective of healthcare reform, is to “strengthen primary care and ensure basic coverage,” which constitutes the baseline set by the government for healthcare reform. While adhering to this baseline, Weimai has leveraged new technologies and innovative models in practice to innovate and improve medical and health services, thereby meeting the public’s demand for more diverse and enriched services beyond basic medical and healthcare needs.

When issuing the “Opinions on Promoting the Development of ‘Internet + Healthcare’,” the National Health Commission emphasized adhering to a combination of “optimizing existing resources” and “expanding new growth,” proposing both the use of “Internet+” to optimize existing medical services and the enrichment of service supply. Weimai has accelerated its development around these two key focuses, establishing a strong industry reputation and a solid user base.

I. Optimize Existing Resources and Improve “Healthcare + Internet”: Leveraging the internet to enhance the efficiency of existing hospital service processes and better serve users. Weimai integrates all localized medical resources (including services provided by hospitals, physicians, and healthcare institutions). The platform offers medical care services, data inquiry, and comprehensive payment solutions for all local hospitals. Furthermore, through collaborations with public hospitals and pharmaceutical suppliers, Weimai is developing internet hospitals to establish an online-offline integrated outpatient model. This expands the service boundaries of hospitals and physicians, enabling the general public to enjoy the benefits of “Internet+” healthcare by accessing medical consultation and prescription services from the comfort of their homes.

II. Expand Incremental Growth and Develop “Internet + Healthcare”: Greater emphasis is placed on leveraging the internet to innovate medical services, thereby meeting public demand for value-added services beyond basic healthcare. Weimai has achieved significant breakthroughs in “innovative healthcare service operations” by using the internet to expand service offerings and enrich service supply. It vigorously develops market-driven medical services and, through market-based mechanisms, opens up more mid-to-high-end, personalized healthcare options, providing users with choices and channels to purchase premium medical services. This approach aims to realize the goal of “ensuring that every patient receives at least one exclusive service.”

The Core of Healthcare Service Operations Is Trust.When healthcare services are built on trust, patient compliance is significantly higher, which naturally facilitates recovery—this is the value of “trust.” Weimai’s business logic centers on fostering “Trust-Based Healthcare” by focusing on how to build trust between doctors and patients. According to VCBeat, Weimai was the first in China to propose the concept of “Trust-Based Healthcare,” aiming to enhance transparency and mutual trust between doctors and patients within the public healthcare system.

Healthcare access for the general public is localized; therefore, Weimai builds its medical and health services on a city-by-city basis, with a strong focus on localization. Through in-depth collaboration with public hospitals, Weimai brings the “3+1” functions of major hospitals in each city online—where “3” refers to services, payments, and data, and “1” refers to doctors. In a medium-sized public hospital, tens of thousands of interactions occur daily between doctors and patients. Weimai captures these “trust-based connections” from doctor-patient interactions and migrates them online, turning every encounter into a small unit of trust. Over time, each doctor accumulates a base of trusting followers, and each patient has a trusted physician, naturally giving rise to the family doctor model.

Leveraging the localized nature of healthcare access, Weimai connects with the majority of local medical service resources within individual cities, providing users with a comprehensive healthcare experience. This also means that Weimai’s primary service areas are not first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, but rather it adopts a market strategy of “encircling the cities from the countryside.” Currently, Weimai focuses on third- and fourth-tier cities, which number over 150 nationwide and cover a population of 500 million.

After penetrating the core of urban medical services, this “relationship of trust” began to empower Weimai in return, naturally facilitating the advancement of innovative healthcare services. It is understood that as early as 2017, Weimai partnered with multiple hospitals to carry out specialized operations and innovations centered on specific disease categories. Currently, it covers 32 departments and over 1,000 specific disease conditions, offering more than 12,000 SKUs of services to provide patients with comprehensive, full-cycle management across all disease types throughout the pre-diagnosis, during-diagnosis, and post-diagnosis stages.

As its scale expands and operations continue to upgrade, Weimai now covers 17 provinces across China, partners with over 70 cities and nearly 1,000 hospitals, serves more than 10 million users, reaches a population of over 150 million, and hosts 100,000 doctors offering various medical and healthcare service SKUs on its platform.

Zhang Jianbin, Partner at IDG Capital, the lead investor in this financing round, stated: “The operational barriers to urban healthcare management are actually very high. However, Weimai’s alternative market-entry model has secured substantial market space for itself. By focusing on operational investments, Weimai has established fundamental user recognition in many cities, encapsulated by the mindset: ‘Shop on Taobao, seek medical care via Weimai.’ Furthermore, its wholehearted embrace of public hospitals and its role as a hospital assistant align with our philosophy. Medical services should return to hospitals and the physicians within them; this is the true essence of ‘Internet + Healthcare.’”

As a board member of Weimai, Hao Yiwen from Source Code Capital stated, “Source Code Capital has continuously invested in Weimai’s angel round, Series A, and Series B, and we are increasing our investment in this round. We are delighted to see that over the past four years, Weimai has remained on the right track, staying true to its original mission of focusing on serving patients and supporting healthcare reform, while gradually expanding its commercial potential. Source Code Capital is committed to continuing its support for the company’s growth and looks forward to Weimai achieving greater success in the steadily evolving ‘Internet + Healthcare’ sector.”

Furthermore, Shen Xiaoyin of Qianji Capital, one of the follow-on investors in this financing round, stated that since its establishment in 2010, Qianji Capital has consistently focused on investment and strategic positioning in two areas: treatment and care.

In Shen Xiaoyin’s view, 80% of patients’ healthcare needs stem from a desire for care, which gives rise to care-oriented service scenarios; the remaining 20% are driven by the need for treatment, corresponding to medical technology.

Based on this, Shen Xiaoyin believes that Weimai is not only a highly scarce investment target in the medical services sector but also leads many domestic internet healthcare companies in terms of strategic layout. From the outset, Weimai has centered its approach on patients’ localized medical service needs, establishing trusted physician-patient connections through initial consultations to enable patients to access more care-related services. Shen Xiaoyin firmly believes that Weimai will become a vital component in enhancing the overall service level of the existing healthcare system and gradually emerge as the preferred choice for local medical consultations among the general public.

Meanwhile, Weimai has also captured the patient traffic entry points of Grade A tertiary hospitals in second- and third-tier cities, providing local patients with more diversified services, higher efficiency, and a better experience, thereby empowering the existing healthcare system. This high barrier to entry allows it to tap into the hospitals’ own patient flow while continuously attracting consumer-side (C-end) traffic. This is one of the key reasons for its sustained growth and support.

In addition to providing financial support to Weimai, Shen Xiaoyin also mentioned that his investment firm positions itself as an aggregator of portfolio companies, aiming to create a closed-loop healthcare ecosystem by orchestrating collaborations among them. In other words, he is constantly strategizing how these invested projects can interact and synergize with one another.

Take the collaboration between Yijie and Weimai as an example. After Shen Xiaoyin invested in Weimai, he successfully facilitated the partnership between the two companies, yielding favorable outcomes.

Yijie is tailored to various professional social scenarios for physicians, while Weimai’s scenarios are also hospital-based and serve doctors. The high overlap in application scenarios and target users, along with their ability to meet physicians’ needs at different career stages, forms the foundation of their partnership.

In terms of collaboration, Weimai focuses on patient needs, which require substantial operational efforts. Ultimately, patient demands must be addressed through services provided by doctors and hospitals. Regarding physicians’ needs—such as how to serve patients effectively, what tools are required, and how to build their personal brands—this necessitates the integration of products that connect with the medical community. In this way, both parties can jointly create outcomes that satisfy patients, doctors, and hospitals alike.

Shen Xiaoyin stated that through collaboration on such joint initiatives, both parties are in fact helping to further strengthen their respective moats.

Furthermore, from the perspective of healthcare reform, the fundamental goal is to improve hospital service quality and reduce medical insurance expenditures, which inevitably impacts physicians’ income. The emergence of Weimai helps hospitals retain patients by introducing bundled payment packages that patients are willing to purchase. For instance, prenatal care bundles allow users to experience a level of service quality in public hospitals comparable to that of United Family Healthcare.

For instance, Weimai collaborates with hospital obstetrics departments to provide comprehensive online and offline “care” services throughout pregnancy. While online services are a strength of internet healthcare companies, Weimai also delivers “exclusive services” to each user through its own service personnel, dedicated service facilities, and professional medical teams within hospital premises. Furthermore, all procedures are jointly conducted by hospital physicians and Weimai staff, ensuring a highly transparent process.

As a result, approximately 40% of users who have completed registration at the hospital are willing to purchase this service package. This is a service delivered within the hospital setting, with participation from the hospital’s physicians, which helps build trust, improve conversion rates, and thereby stimulate user purchasing power.