Decoding the Unicorn DNA: Ping An Good Doctor, WeDoctor, and Yidu's Rise in China's Mobile Healthcare Sector
Recently, Medlinker announced the completion of its RMB 1 billion Series D financing round, led by China Investment and China Fortune Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital China, CEC Health Industry Fund, and China Renaissance New Economy Fund. With this milestone, a new unicorn has emerged in China’s mobile healthcare sector.
Internationally, the definition of a unicorn follows the “double 10” criterion: the company must have been founded no more than 10 years ago and have a valuation of at least $1 billion. Being a unicorn signifies rapid growth and strong development potential, prompting us to consider a key question: How can one become a unicorn?
This article analyzes the growth trajectories of Ping An Good Doctor, WeDoctor, and Medlinker—cases of companies that have grown into unicorns—and deciphers the genetic factors behind their success.
In the field of internet healthcare, WeDoctor is also a unicorn company. Initially, it aimed to address the difficulty of accessing medical care by solving the problem of challenging appointment scheduling. After years of refinement, it became clear that the scarcity and uneven distribution of high-quality medical resources were the root causes of the difficulty in seeing a doctor. Consequently, the company pivoted to explore a series of solutions for optimizing the allocation of medical resources, such as tiered diagnosis and treatment. It took WeDoctor four years to transition from serving patients on the demand side to serving doctors on the supply side.
At that time, capital was fervently chasing the mobile health boom. In 2014 alone, there were more than 60 financing deals in the mobile health sector, with 27 individual deals exceeding RMB 100 million. The total amount raised surpassed RMB 10 billion, more than three times the size of the mobile health market.
Medlinker, a newly emerged unicorn in the veterinary sector, entered the market by capitalizing on the investment boom of 2014. Established in June, it secured angel-round funding in August from Ceyuan Ventures and PreAngel. From the outset, Medlinker targeted physicians, emphasizing professional networking. All doctors were required to complete real-name verification on the platform before sharing case studies and engaging in academic exchanges. At that time, China lacked vertical communities specifically designed for physicians, such as ResearchGate or Doximity, and Medlinker filled this gap. For startup teams, timing is crucial; in February 2015, Medlinker raised an additional $5 million from Sequoia Capital China.
Another highly anticipated new unicorn, Ping An Good Doctor, is what we often refer to as a “silver-spoon baby.” Backed by the Ping An Group, it positioned itself as “health management + mobile healthcare” upon its launch in 2015, aiming to build health management and online consultation services. It has made substantial investments in physician resources, establishing a three-tier physician service system that ranges from one-on-one services to triage and referral, initial offline consultations and follow-up visits, and, at the outermost tier, one-click access to renowned specialists for users.
Healthcare is a typical supplier-driven market; merely having physician resources is far from sufficient. Only by returning to the essence of healthcare can we achieve a breakthrough.
Among these three unicorns, WeDoctor is the earliest entrant and the player that has undergone the most adjustments. In September 2014, the former National Health and Family Planning Commission announced that China would pilot tiered diagnosis and treatment in cities selected for public hospital reform. In February 2015, the former National Health and Family Planning Commission included “vigorously advancing tiered diagnosis and treatment” as a key priority for the year. WeDoctor promptly seized this opportunity by actively transforming its model through team-based care led by “chief experts.” Leveraging mobile internet technologies, it organized cross-regional, same-specialty medical teams to share high-quality physician resources, thereby supporting the implementation of tiered diagnosis and treatment.
In December 2015, WeDoctor established the “Wuzhen Internet Hospital,” the first internet hospital in China, injecting new hope into mobile healthcare. Subsequently, some bold hospitals began to seek transformation by using internet hospitals as an entry point to delve into core medical processes, including online consultation, auxiliary diagnosis, prescription medications, and medical insurance payment. They aimed to explore the possibilities of digitizing diagnostic and treatment services, with the intention of creating a self-sustaining ecosystem encompassing healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and insurance.
After multiple strategic adjustments, Ping An Good Doctor has clarified its positioning as a comprehensive health ecosystem platform integrating consultation services, physical examination services, medical aesthetics services, and pharmaceutical e-commerce.
YiLian, a newly emerged unicorn veterinary alliance, chose to start with the doctor side from the beginning. It secured three rounds of financing within two years and was favored by both Tencent and Yunfeng Capital. By the first half of 2016, the number of doctors on YiLian's social platform had reached 200,000. However, 99% of users were not satisfied with just content; they hoped to obtain legitimate income. Having users but no business model, YiLian, which had enjoyed smooth sailing since its inception, encountered embarrassment for the first time.
While most mobile health companies subsidize online consultations with advertising fees from pharmaceutical enterprises to attract physicians, Medlinker has carved out a unique path from one end of the tiered diagnosis and treatment policy. It has built a referral service platform connecting associate chief physicians and above at large hospitals with local hospitals and medical institutions, enabling doctors to perform surgeries during their spare time and reasonably increase their transparent income.
Subsequently, Medlinker embarked on a series of explorations, establishing a “medical-education-research system” and even migrating traditional physician education to online platforms. Following this, Medlinker quietly transitioned from a physician-focused platform to a provider of solutions for pharmaceutical companies.
With the issuance of the “Measures for the Administration of Internet-Based Diagnosis and Treatment (Trial)” (Draft for Comments) by the General Office of the National Health and Family Planning Commission on May 9, 2017, and the promulgation of the State Council’s “Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of ‘Internet + Medical Health’” on April 28, 2018, the requirement that internet-based medical services be conducted in conjunction with offline physical hospitals has become increasingly clear.
Leveraging favorable policy tailwinds, Medlinker’s business layout has gradually permeated every segment of the upstream and downstream health industry chain, including government agencies, healthcare institutions, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, and insurance companies. As a connector, Medlinker is accelerating the integration of partnerships with upstream and downstream stakeholders to rapidly realize the value of convergence and empowerment. It has entered into a strategic cooperation with West China School of Stomatology, where both parties will jointly build a smart internet hospital and promote the innovative integration of artificial intelligence and stomatology. In addition, Medlinker has formed a tripartite strategic partnership with Penguin Doctor and Dingdang Kuaiyao to accelerate its presence in the pharmaceutical distribution sector and establish a closed-loop service model encompassing “medical care + diagnosis + medication.” Furthermore, it has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the People’s Government of Rizhao City, Shandong Province, to provide comprehensive smart healthcare services to the city. In June this year, the Medlinker Huafang Internet Hospital officially commenced operations, attracting four National Medical Masters represented by Professor Zhang Daning, along with a total of 600 physicians, to practice at multiple sites on the platform.
“Deep medical expertise, strong market sense, and precise strategic positioning”—this is how Sequoia China evaluates Wang Shirui, the founder of Medlinker.
The multiple business transformations over the past four years have further corroborated this. From building a physician community, to facilitating physician referrals, to providing integrated academic marketing services for pharmaceutical companies, and now to leveraging healthcare big data, Medlinker has consistently maintained a leading position in its strategic direction.
It is precisely because of Wang Shirui’s strategic vision and broad perspective on the macro direction that he has been able to attract powerful investors such as China Investment Corporation, China Financial International Investments, Sequoia China, Tencent, Yunfeng Capital, and CECEP Health Industry Fund.
No business model remains viable indefinitely, particularly in fields like internet healthcare that must closely align with evolving policy landscapes. This necessitates that founders or decision-makers meticulously dissect complex factors to make precise forecasts about the future.
With WeDoctor making comprehensive efforts on both the supply and demand sides of internet hospitals, and Ping An Good Doctor positioning itself as an integrator of all patient resources, 31-year-old Wang Shirui has turned Medlinker into a unicorn in just four years—a feat that is likely unsurpassable in the highly barriered healthcare industry.
It is understood that after completing this round of financing, Medlinker, which has already aggregated 500,000 real-name verified physicians and 20,000 contracted physicians, will continue to refine its full industry chain centered on smart internet hospital solutions, driven by core resources and technologies such as medical big data and artificial intelligence. Medlinker’s next goal is to grow into a leading comprehensive innovative healthcare enterprise with business coverage spanning the entire “Internet + Healthcare” industry chain.