JiCheng Kids Dental Secures Tens of Millions in Series A Funding Led by IDG Capital, Total Funding Exceeds RMB 100 Million Within Three Years
Jicheng Dental Aims to Build the “Disney” of Pediatric Dentistry
VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that Orange Children’s Dentistry announced the completion of a funding round in February 2018, led byIDG Capital Leads Investment, with tens of millions of RMB in Series A funding co-invested by Daotong Investment and Dianliang Fund. Previously, Ji Cheng secured angel-round financing from ZhenFund in 2015 and Pre-A round investment from Fenxiang Capital in 2016, raising over RMB 100 million within three years. Following the financing, the company planned to expand its clinic network in 2018, with Shanghai and Tianjin as its core markets.
In July 2017, Jicheng opened its first space-themed clinic dedicated to children in Shanghai.Gamifying Pediatric Dental Visits for a Happy Experience. Among the thousands of dental clinics in Shanghai, only a handful cater exclusively to children, and this is the sole clinic offering themed, gamified dental care.
Within one month of its opening, Jicheng rapidly became a viral clinic among mothers’ social circles, and even a year later, it remained so popular that weekend appointments were fully booked. Reporters learned that JichengCurrent revenue is derived from preventive care, caries treatment, and orthodontics. Monthly patient visits per clinicAround 1,000, reaching the profitability level.
Tar Gai, CEO of Jicheng Pediatric Dentistry, stated that the core challenge in pediatric dental care is children's inability to cooperate due to fear, whereas playfulness is inherent to their nature. An engaging environmental design and gamified processes can enable children to undergo dental treatment seamlessly, often without even realizing it.
“Over the past year, we have engaged in many interesting practices. Our nurses invented a ‘cart method,’ where children reluctant to enter the consultation room are seated on chairs disguised as spaceships and playfully wheeled into the room to complete their treatment. We have collected numerous such cases, which will be named after the nurses, customer service representatives, and doctors who devised these methods, and compiled into Jicheng’s own textbook,” said Taiergai.
Jicheng Pediatric Dentistry is built around the mission of “helping children enjoy dental visits.” By introducing pediatric behavior guidance and adhering to the core values of “customer first, creating joy, and company-wide innovation,” it has successfully created a pediatric dental clinic that children are reluctant to leave. The “gamified” approach to dental care has become the key differentiator between Jicheng Pediatric Dentistry and traditional pediatric dental clinics in China, serving as its unique competitive advantage.
Targa stated that today, ChinaThe pediatric dentistry market is approximately RMB 30 billion., and it is growing at an annual rate of 30%. Within five years, this will become a market valued at hundreds of billions of yuan. Since 2020, parents born in the 1990s and even the mid-to-late 1990s have officially taken center stage; this generation places far greater emphasis on oral health than those born in the 1970s and 1980s. The U.S. dental market is already a trillion-dollar industry, indicating that the potential of the dental sector is limitless.
Currently, the most representative product of Jicheng Dental isOrange Treasure Card“What we want to convey to parents is that you don’t need to know everything from the start; we will guide you on what your child needs. This card is essentially a preventive care package, covering all the preventive measures a child requires throughout the year. We will create a health record for each child and proactively call parents to schedule appointments at appropriate times when preventive care is due. Every visit to Jicheng Dental, and every encounter with our dentists, offers children and their mothers not only professional services but also ongoing education, gradually building comprehensive knowledge about pediatric dental health. We envision the Orange Baby Card as an entry point, establishing Jicheng Dental as a trusted expert in children’s oral health management for mothers.”
In 2018, Jicheng Pediatric Dentistry planned to open 20 clinics with Shanghai and Tianjin as its core hubs. In the future, Jicheng plans toChina。
“China has 300 million children, with a dental caries prevalence rate exceeding 70% among five-year-olds, and this figure is on the rise. Given such a vast potential market, it is entirely feasible to open 1,000 clinics.” To seize this significant opportunity, Jicheng will rigorously uphold medical quality, prioritize the recruitment, training, and incentivization of talent, and place special emphasis on strengthening its data infrastructure.
Targa stated that healthcare is the core and foundation of Jicheng, talent is the fundamental element of the service industry, and only throughDatafication and Informatizationto manage a large-scale enterprise with complex operations.
Regarding the future, Taer Gai, CEO of Jicheng Pediatric Dentistry, stated: “Our vision is to become ‘Pediatric Dentistry Disney', taking the concept of 'making dental visits a joyful experience for children' to the extreme, and becoming a world-class pediatric dental clinic that is exceptionally professional, impeccably clean, highly engaging, and remarkably efficient."
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