Anxin Health, a Leading Internet Healthcare Platform Focused on Assisted Reproduction, Files for IPO After Raising Over RMB 200 Million

In the internet healthcare industry, Anxin Health (formerly Anxin Doctor) can be described as a star enterprise.

In terms of the founding team, the company was incubated by Li Jing, co-founder of Dianping, and jointly established by Ge Xing, a former executive at multinational pharmaceutical companies, and Zhao Peng, a former senior product director at Baidu and Alibaba. The core management team also includes Zhang Gang, former General Manager of the Promotion Division at Dianping, and Xue Yong, former Senior Technical Expert at Alibaba.

In terms of financing, the company simultaneously completed its Series B and Series B+ rounds, raising a total of approximately RMB 200 million. Investors included Matrix Partners China, IDG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and others;

In terms of physician resources, we cover 32 core cities across China, with nearly 20,000 doctors from public hospitals, 80% of whom are from tertiary-grade A hospitals and specialized women’s and children’s hospitals, having cumulatively served over 6 million patients;

In terms of business development, it became one of the first companies to obtain internet hospital qualifications in Yinchuan in 2017;

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As a result, Anxin Health enjoys every possible advantage in terms of its team, business operations, financing, and physician resources. Not long ago, its founder, Ge Xing, told VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) that over the past year, they have not only remained steadfast in their original focus on women’s and children’s health but also explored another development path—assisted reproductive technology.

In Ge Xing’s view, with the full implementation of the two-child policy, public medical institutions can only meet 20% of patient demand, presenting a prime opportunity for private healthcare providers. He aims to serve as a bridge to assist more families wishing to have a second child.

Anxin Health, founded in 2015, has grown into China’s largest mobile healthcare platform for women’s and children’s health within just three years. Throughout its development, the company has consistently recognized the significant potential in the maternal and pediatric sectors. Its physician-oriented app provides obstetricians, gynecologists, and pediatricians with tools to manage post-consultation patients, including features for follow-ups, consultations, and appointments at offline clinics. Patients can establish connections with physicians by following them on WeChat.

Meanwhile, the “Anxin Health” WeChat official account for patients hosts China’s largest knowledge base on women’s and children’s health, enabling patients to readily look up answers to various questions related to women’s and children’s health. These answers are provided by high-quality physicians from top-tier (Grade A tertiary) hospitals in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Through years of accumulation, the platform has already served more than six million real post-diagnosis patients.

It is precisely based on this that, through increased interactions with patients, Ge Xing discovered their strong interest in assisted reproductive technology (ART). Consequently, he decided to pursue a second development path—focusing on the ART market.

Prior to this, he conducted thorough market research to validate the correctness of this strategic direction. Subsequently, he drew two conclusions:

First, there is a severe shortage of supply in the assisted reproductive technology (ART) market. According to statistics, there are only 451 licensed institutions for reproductive services in China, which falls far short of meeting public demand. Currently, there are as many as 40 million women of childbearing age experiencing infertility, and approximately 20% of the nearly 20 million newborns each year are conceived through ART. This indicates that a substantial portion of demand remains unmet, significantly driving the emergence of numerous private reproductive healthcare institutions. However, these private institutions face challenges in acquiring patient traffic.

Second, there is a severe information asymmetry between doctors and patients in the assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry, making it difficult for patients to find suitable institutions to address their reproductive needs and issues. According to Ge Xing’s analysis, the current situation in the ART sector closely resembles that of the medical aesthetics industry three years ago, where numerous patients/users seeking medical aesthetic services could not find appropriate solutions in public hospitals, thereby enabling a large number of private medical aesthetics institutions to emerge and thrive.

However, these private medical aesthetic institutions have limited traffic. They can only ensure sufficient visitor flow by engaging in extensive marketing and collaborating with high-traffic platforms such as Baidu for user acquisition. In response to this situation, online traffic aggregators in the vertical medical aesthetics sector, such as SoYoung, attract institutions to their platforms by generating substantial volumes of user-generated content (UGC), thereby achieving more direct, precise, and relatively low-cost user redirection. Anxin Health adopts a similar approach: it attracts patients through the rich content of its “Yi Da” service and various offerings from its internet hospital. By tagging users based on their behavior on the platform, it identifies those with needs for assisted reproduction and postpartum rehabilitation, then precisely connects them with private medical institutions on the platform that provide relevant services, thus completing the commercial loop.

Following thorough research, Ge Xing felt confident in continuing to expand into the field of assisted reproductive technology while maintaining his existing business operations.

In Ge Xing’s vision, Anxin Health serves as a bridge connecting doctors with patients, as well as private healthcare institutions with patients—much like platforms such as Didi Chuxing or So-Young.

With nearly one million monthly active patients on the Anxin Health platform, more than half come from obstetrics and assisted reproductive technology (ART)-related departments, while the other half are from gynecology and pediatrics. This provides a guaranteed patient flow and access to high-quality medical resources for developing ART services, serving as a key advantage in attracting users.

Meanwhile, the company obtained qualifications as an internet hospital medical institution last year, enabling patients to access online consultation, diagnosis, and prescription services on its platform. Users can also browse nearly 2 million “One-Answer” entries related to women’s and children’s healthcare (comprising patient questions and physician responses). This has significantly expanded the platform’s service reach, laying the foundation for the future integration of medical institutions from across China.

In short, Anxin Health continuously acquires precise traffic online and directs it to its internet hospital. The internet hospital features obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, and reproductive specialists from top-tier (Grade 3A) hospitals in first- and second-tier cities, providing high-quality medical services. By offering abundant professional content on obstetrics, gynecology, and reproduction, the platform earns patients’ trust. Offline, it connects with private medical institutions, helping them solve their patient acquisition challenges.

“We currently have offline partnerships with nearly 100 medical institutions, including reproductive health facilities such as maternity hospitals, as well as overseas pregnancy and childbirth services, genetic testing, postpartum medical aesthetics, and postpartum care centers,” Ge Xing told the reporter.

In the process of selecting partner institutions, he places great emphasis on the following criteria: First, the eligibility requirement is that the enterprise must provide formal medical services to women and children, meeting the government’s conditions for providing such services. Second, the participating enterprises are primarily focused on assisted reproductive technologies (such as IVF and other infertility treatments, overseas maternity services, etc.), postpartum care services (including confinement centers, postpartum yoga, postpartum medical aesthetics, etc.), and obstetrics and gynecology hospitals.

These enterprises joining the Anxin Health Platform will also benefit from enhanced brand awareness and a significant increase in traffic. For instance, Sidao, a company specializing in in vitro fertilization (IVF), partnered with the Anxin Health Platform and saw a marked rise in brand visibility and customer footfall, along with a substantial reduction in customer acquisition costs.

“In the future, we aim to onboard more private medical institutions, with a focus on fertility, and become China’s largest and most trusted healthcare service platform in the field of women’s and children’s health,” said Ge Xing.

Policy Deregulation Brings Dawn to the Assisted Reproductive Technology Industry. This revolutionary moment occurred in 2007, when the authority to approve licenses for assisted reproductive technologies was delegated to provincial health and family planning commissions. Consequently, while emphasizing quality standards and technical specifications, provinces successively witnessed a surge in the approval of assisted reproductive technology centers. Currently, nearly 70% of assisted reproductive centers are approved by provincial-level health and family planning commissions.

As the demand pool continued to expand, approval authority for assisted reproductive technology (ART) institutions was delegated to provincial-level health and family planning commissions, enabling each province to formulate development plans tailored to local conditions. Over the following five years, the number of ART institutions experienced explosive growth, surging from 95 in 2007 to 356 by the end of 2012.

 
On January 5, 2016, the State Council officially issued the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Implementing the Universal Two-Child Policy to Reform and Improve Family Planning Service Management," marking China's full relaxation of the two-child policy.
 
Subsequently, there has been a significant increase in the number of individuals over the age of 35 seeking to conceive. Due to factors such as declining ovarian function in women and reduced sperm quality in men, natural fertility is markedly diminished in this age group, necessitating medical intervention to realize their aspirations for a second child.
 
However, existing assisted reproductive technology (ART) institutions fall far short of meeting market demand. Based on provincial and municipal ART development plans and the National Health and Family Planning Commission’s standard of one institution per 3 million people, the maximum number of licenses for ART centers in the future will be no less than 550, leaving room for at least approximately 100 additional facilities.
 
The issuance of each assisted reproductive technology (ART) license carries the hope of more families for having a second child. Meanwhile, this presents an opportunity for platforms like Anxin Health; it is hoped that by the time the number of licensed institutions reaches 100, such platforms will have carved out their own distinctive competitive advantages.