SonicMed Completes Tens of Millions RMB Angel Funding Round Led by Ziniu Fund Founded by Fu Sheng and Zhang Quanling

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has recently learned exclusively that Chengdu Siduoke Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (“Siduoke”) announced the completion of its angel financing round, raising tens of millions of RMB. The round was solely invested by Ziniu Fund, with Tanjin Capital serving as the exclusive financial advisor. The funds from this round will be allocated to R&D, technological reserves, and marketing, as well as to preliminary preparations for establishing a production line.

In this round, the financial advisory firm Probe Capital focuses on investments in the healthcare sector, committed to growing alongside elite healthcare enterprises and helping them create value.

Ziniu Fund, the investing institution in this round, is an early-to-mid-stage equity investment fund co-founded by Fu Sheng, CEO of Cheetah Mobile, and Zhang Quanling, a former renowned CCTV host. The fund primarily focuses on early-to-mid-stage equity investments in artificial intelligence, mass consumer goods, healthcare, and content sectors. Its portfolio includes Orbotix (OrionStar), Zhongke Shituo, Zhiju Technology, Tianrang Network, Chushan Technology, Bonao Medical, Shukang Surgical Robotics, Aipu Regenerative Medicine, and Digital Precision Medical Technology.

Siduoke is a company dedicated to the ultrasound field, providing portable non-invasive diagnostic ultrasound medical equipment and services, backed by an experienced R&D team and sales team in the ultrasound sector.YuCo-founded in Chengdu in June 2016. The company possesses its own proprietary imaging platform, along with several key technologies such as proprietary elastography and 3D Doppler spectral imaging. Its current handheld ultrasound products are capable of performing liver disease diagnosis, cervical vascular screening, and thyroid screening.

Dr. Yu Bo of Ziniu Fund, which invested in the project, stated that driven by the integration and rapid development of external technologies such as artificial intelligence, information engineering, and biotechnology, medical devices have a clear evolutionary trajectory toward “miniaturization, intelligence, precision, and minimally invasive” capabilities. Amid favorable policies encouraging domestically produced products, innovative Chinese-made medical devices with core technological advantages are presented with substantial opportunities for import substitution.

Sondoc’s handheld ultrasound device aligns precisely with this direction. By targeting the diagnostic segment of the healthcare value chain and leveraging its integrated intelligent diagnostic module, it breaks free from the traditional confinement to imaging departments, extending into various clinical specialties. This significantly expands usage scenarios and market size, enhances diagnostic accuracy, and minimizes reliance on highly experienced specialists, thereby facilitating widespread adoption at the primary care level.

In the future, leveraging the advantage of scalable intelligent modules on original imaging platforms will enable integration with artificial intelligence technologies. By using hardware as an entry point to accumulate specialized imaging resources, this approach facilitates the upgrade of integrated software-hardware intelligent diagnostic tools, aligning with Purple Cow Fund’s data-driven investment logic.

Recently, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies to encourage innovation in medical devices, such as the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Review and Approval System to Encourage Innovation in Drugs and Medical Devices." Among these initiatives, various types of small non-invasive diagnostic devices have been included in the list of major national research and development projects under the 13th Five-Year Plan published by the Ministry of Science and Technology. Additionally, government-led grassroots healthcare programs, such as "Doctors on Horseback," have also procured small non-invasive diagnostic equipment.

Zhang Zhuo, Co-founder and CEO of Sidoco, believes that under the encouragement of a series of national policies, small non-invasive diagnostic devices have a very broad market prospect in China, and compared with large instruments, small ultrasound instruments have many unique advantages.

Traditional large-scale ultrasound devices suffer from drawbacks such as bulky size, heaviness, lack of portability, and high cost. For hospitals, procuring large ultrasound equipment involves significant expenditure and requires training for specialized physicians. For patients, usage scenarios are limited; examinations must be conducted in dedicated departments, typically requiring advance appointments or waiting in queues, resulting in relatively cumbersome procedures.

However, portable ultrasound devices are well-positioned to address these limitations. First, they offer a significant price advantage. Additionally, the portability and ease of use of these compact devices greatly enhance efficiency, facilitating their integration into clinical departments and enabling their deployment in primary healthcare settings.

Compact, non-invasive diagnostic devices based on ultrasound can be marketed to clinical departments and primary healthcare institutions. According to research, there is substantial demand for such devices in emergency, anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynecology, cardiology, and endocrinology departments at China’s tertiary A hospitals, with a future addressable market of approximately $27 billion.

Situo’s strong technical foundation is underpinned by its dedicated technology team. Notably, Dr. Liu Xiyao, the company’s founder and chairman, brings over a decade of experience in ultrasound research and industry practice, with expertise spanning medical ultrasound system design as well as medical signal and image processing.

Dr. Liu Xiyao holds six Chinese invention patents, with five additional patents pending, and has published more than 20 academic papers. As early as 2008, Dr. Liu engaged in ultrasound research and development, leading his team to advance high-end medical color ultrasound systems. He proposed novel algorithms such as 3D spectral imaging, high-resolution color flow imaging, compound elastography, and software beamforming.

As a technical advisor, Professor Liu Dongquan served as the Chief Scientist of Siemens Ultrasound in the United States for 11 years. With 28 years of experience in the ultrasound industry, Professor Liu has been granted 18 U.S. invention patents and 16 Chinese invention patents. He was appointed as a Distinguished Professor at Sichuan University in 2004.

Sitoke’s rapid growth is also inseparable from the efforts of its marketing and sales team. Zhang Zhuo, Co-founder and CEO of the company, brings 11 years of experience in marketing and sales within the ultrasound industry and has participated in the research, development, and promotion of multiple handheld ultrasound projects. Ms. Zhang previously served as an ultrasonographer in the Department of Ultrasound at Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, giving her deep insight into the market dynamics and clinical needs for ultrasound equipment. She also formerly held the position of Clinical Technical Director for Ultrasound at Runze Medical, where she was responsible for the research and development as well as the marketing of China’s exclusive ultrasound contrast agents.

In this regard, Dr. Yu Bo of Ziniu Fund commented on the founding team of Siduoke as follows: “They are one of the few teams in China with the capability for integrated hardware and software design and development of underlying technology platforms.”

The team’s strong technical background also sets Sidoco apart from other companies in the ultrasound field—they have developed their own proprietary ultrasound imaging platform. This platform is built on a self-developed multi-layer data processing solution that leverages GPU parallel processing to organize image data. Such technology is featured in the new high-end ultrasound products of leading international manufacturers, such as GE, Siemens, and Supersonic Imagine (France). In contrast, most large-scale domestic medical ultrasound products still rely on CPU-based computation, lagging behind GPU-driven algorithms.

Moreover, Storko possesses proprietary elastography technology and unique non-linear imaging technology. Freehand elastography technology provides a basis for differentiating between benign and malignant space-occupying lesions in various body parts by detecting displacement differences caused by variations in tissue stiffness.

Non-linear parameters are physical properties of tissue that correlate with changes in the pathological state of biological tissues; for instance, non-linear quantitative parameters can be used to assess fatty liver disease. This feature is available only as a high-priced optional extra on top-tier models from a select few major international manufacturers. Across both domestic and global markets, currently, only StoCo can integrate these two technologies into handheld devices.

Leveraging its proprietary technology platform, Sidoco’s handheld devices are launched with 32 physical channels, whereas comparable ultrasound-based portable devices currently offer only 8 or 24 channels. Generally, a higher number of physical channels enables the acquisition of more signal data, thereby yielding higher image resolution through computational processing and providing physicians with more diagnostically relevant information. Sidoco’s next step is to introduce 64 physical channels, a specification that currently characterizes large-scale color Doppler ultrasound systems in China’s mid-to-low-end market.

Furthermore, Stork possesses the exclusive international and domestic 3D blood flow Doppler spectral analysis instrument. By leveraging multi-sample gate Doppler technology, it provides information on intravascular blood flow velocity distribution and accurate calculations of blood flow volume. This instrument can acquire comprehensive blood flow data across the entire vessel in a single scan, thereby enabling rapid localization of potential pathological lesions. The primary application scenarios include the assessment of carotid arteries and the extent of systemic atherosclerosis.

Dr. Liu Xiyao, Founder and Chairman of Siduoke, is full of confidence in the team’s technical capabilities. He stated, “Leveraging our team’s strong core technological advantages, Siduoke has developed multiple small, non-invasive diagnostic products based on ultrasound technology, which can be applied in various scenarios such as intraoperative use, anesthesia, and needle puncture procedures. Currently, these products are capable of performing liver disease diagnosis, cervical vascular screening, and thyroid screening. In the future, image fusion navigation will also be utilized to guide interventional surgeries.”