Meibei, a Premium Medical Aesthetic Consultation Platform, Secures RMB 1 Billion Series B Funding Led by Shenzhen Capital Group
VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that on June 10, Meibei, a domestic online platform for high-end plastic surgery consultation services, announced it had secured RMB 100 million in Series B financing, led by Shenzhen Capital Group (SCGC).
Gong Liansheng, Founder and CEO of Meibei, stated that upon the completion of this round of financing, the well-capitalized Meibei willThree Key Areas of Focus: First, continue to expand content and the consulting team, deepen operations, and provide users with higher-quality concierge-style lifetime membership services; second, expand the technical team and introduce artificial intelligence to support consulting services; third, further optimize business processes to improve B-side operational efficiency.
Founded in 2011, Meibei is a leading online platform for high-end medical aesthetics consultations in China. Over seven years of development, its services have expanded to cover all 34 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country. The platform attracts over 300,000 daily active users, has amassed more than 10 million targeted medical aesthetics consumers, and partners with 3,500 licensed medical aesthetics institutions and 10,000 practicing physicians, including nearly 300 IP-affiliated doctors, to provide reliable and comprehensive medical aesthetics services. In Chengdu alone, this platform, renowned for its mid-to-high-end services, has attracted more than 200 medical aesthetics institutions to join its network.
According to data from ReportsnReports, the global medical aesthetics market was valued at approximately $52.4 billion in 2015, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5%, and was projected to reach $68.5 billion by 2020. However, the traditional medical aesthetics industry has long struggled with unresolved challenges, including single-channel customer acquisition, persistently high marketing costs, insufficient service transparency, low user satisfaction, and low repurchase rates. Meibei aims to serve as a connector between users and medical aesthetics institutions, providing the former with comprehensive medical resources and services, while linking the latter with more high-quality, premium users.
On one hand, the medical aesthetics industry is a mixed bag, ranging from laser treatments at large nationwide chain cosmetic hospitals to double-eyelid surgeries performed in small street-side clinics. How to reliably select qualified doctors and medical institutions has always been the primary concern for users. Meibei aggregates the highest-quality medical aesthetic resources across China through a rigorous vetting mechanism, providing users with comprehensive, personalized consultation services throughout the entire process, thereby helping them significantly reduce both time costs and psychological burden.
On the other hand, online marketing has long been a weakness for traditional medical aesthetics institutions. In today’s era of highly developed social media, brand communication for most such institutions remains confined to WeChat Moments promotions and street flyer advertisements. Establishing their own new media communication channels would require substantial investment. Integrating with medical aesthetics platforms, however, provides these high-quality medical aesthetics resources with reliable brand stewardship. Meibei can offer them online operational tools encompassing multiple functions—including CRM, transactions, marketing, and product management—helping them track real-time data such as page views, interested users, effective direct messages, and in-store conversions, thereby enhancing operational efficiency and revenue.
Currently, Meibei has established in-depth collaborations with hundreds of domestic medical aesthetic institutions, including Shanghai Huamei, Shanghai Seoul Lige, and Beijing Dongfang Hexie, providing them with comprehensive support spanning traffic acquisition, consultation, service delivery, and operations.
For a long time, “low-price customer acquisition” has become a near-universal consensus among many local service platforms. The medical aesthetics industry is also rife with inflated demand driven by promotions such as “RMB 9.9 trial experiences,” with companies pouring substantial subsidies into price wars to attract users. Ultimately, however, this strategy yields only user registrations, withoutUser Retention. Meibei’s founder and CEO, Gong Liansheng, rejected such low-end competition from the outset and carved out a unique path of differentiation aligned with the company’s goals and positioning.
First, starting with high-risk plastic surgery procedures, focusing on double eyelid surgery, rhinoplasty, and autologous fat transfer.Surgical Services. This category of services has a small user base and high service requirements, but it can also generate high profits and create high barriers to entry.
To this end, Meibei has assembled a professional consultation team of over 300 members to thoroughly assess users’ conditions and needs, provide medical aesthetic recommendations best suited to their individual profiles, fully disclose surgical risks, and tailor the most appropriate medical aesthetic treatment plans for them.
On the part of medical aesthetic institutions, the consultation team comprehensively understands each physician’s areas of expertise and assists them in handling the numerous tedious aspects of communication with patients seeking aesthetic treatments. This allows physicians to focus fully on surgical procedures and maximize their respective strengths.
Meibei ensures full transparency for all procedures and physician profiles. Information such as procedural principles, risks, side effects, recovery timelines, as well as hospitals’ areas of expertise, cumulative sales volumes, and patient reviews is readily accessible on the platform, enabling users to make more confident choices and enjoy a reassuring experience.
Over the past seven years since its establishment, Meibei has achieved a record of 110,000 surgical procedures with zero medical accidents, firmly establishing itself as an undisputed industry leader in terms of both data and reputation.
Secondly, the content is highly substantive. Gong Liansheng pointed out that unlike traditional industries such as clothing, food, housing, and transportation, which are widely understood by the general public, the marketization of medical aesthetics has spanned only a decade. Moreover, it is a field characterized by extreme personalization and strong professional specialization, requiring users to obtain substantial information and guidance before making consumption decisions.
Meibei currently employs over 100 self-media operations specialists, accounting for one-quarter of its total workforce. The team is committed to producing high-quality, efficient content, providing users with a steady stream of premium medical aesthetics information, and leveraging content platforms such as Jinri Toutiao, Tiantian Kuaibao, and Yidian Zixun to continuously attract traffic and acquire customers. Meanwhile, the platform has partnered with four major search engines—Baidu, 360, Shenma, and Sogou—to collaborate with medical aesthetics institutions in creating an authoritative knowledge encyclopedia for the industry, thereby establishing strong connections with users.
Although Meibei has been frequently favored in the capital market, it does not rely on continuous capital injections. Instead, by leveraging a comprehensive service system and an efficient operational mechanism, it has cultivated robust self-sustaining revenue capabilities. In 2016, Meibei’s annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) reached RMB 250 million; in 2017, the GMV hit RMB 400 million. Gong Liansheng stated that in 2018, Meibei alsoAchieve a transaction volume of 1 billionMeanwhile, he reiterated that financing serves merely as a catalyst; the infusion of capital primarily helps teams gain greater acceleration within their competitive landscape. The long-term development and profitability of an enterprise must be driven by its internal service capabilities, which is precisely the core competency that Meibei has consistently focused on cultivating.
Shenzhen Capital Group, the investor, stated that in the medical aesthetics sector, many companies are merely engaged in standardized e-commerce and fail to build their own core competitiveness. In contrast, Meibei has established a medical aesthetics and plastic surgery consultation platform based on three parties—users, institutions, and doctors—with refined services as its core, inSurgical OperationThis domain is in a leading position, while also being able to penetrate into more segments, solve industry pain points, and further consolidate its own barriers. Therefore, we have absolute confidence in the prospects of Meierbei in the field of medical aesthetics.
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