Following $57M Series D-1 Funding, SoYoung App Advances Full-Scenario Aesthetic Ecosystem Built on Content Matrix and Big Data

On December 23, 2017, at the 3rd YOUNG AWARD Asia-Pacific Medical Aesthetics Awards Ceremony, SoYoung founder and CEO Jin Xing announced that SoYoung had completed its D-1 round of financing, with the full RMB 400 million in funds received. With this, SoYoung became the first medical aesthetics platform to announce the completion of its Series D financing.

Apax Partners led this financing round, with CDH Investments co-investing. Existing investors Matrix Partners China and Trustbridge Partners continued to participate in the follow-on investment, while Taihe Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

Jin Xing, Founder and CEO of So-Young, stated, “We will leverage this funding to provide more meticulous and in-depth service support to medical institutions and physicians, delivering a comprehensive, all-scenario user service experience.” So-Young’s future strategy will center on content matrices and big data to build an all-encompassing aesthetic medicine ecosystem.

Amid the broader trend of consumption upgrading, domestic demand for medical aesthetics has grown rapidly, experiencing explosive growth over the past two years, with some local markets even becoming overheated. However, long-standing issues such as weak brand presence and inconsistent service quality persist. Coupled with prolonged user decision-making processes and the lack of efficient operational systems among institutions and physicians, these challenges have created opportunities for platform-based channels.

Regarding this fundraising process, Jin Xing told reporters, “It actually went quite smoothly. The entire financing was completed within three to four months. Given that the total amount was not insignificant, this represents a relatively short timeline.”

The lead investor in this round, Apax Partners (“Apax”), is Europe’s largest and longest-established private equity investment fund, with approximately $51 billion in assets under management.

Apax has extensive experience in the healthcare services sector, with successful investments in GHG, the largest private hospital group in the UK; Capio, a pan-European hospital group; Apollo Hospitals, the largest private hospital group in India; and Syneron Candela, a global leader in medical aesthetic devices.

Zhang Xike, Global Senior Partner and President of Greater China at Apax Partners, stated, “Apax Partners has been deeply rooted in China for many years, adhering to stringent investment criteria. We are honored to have completed our investment in So-Young, a leading internet-based medical aesthetics company in China, as the year draws to a close. With this transaction, Apax’s total investment in China this year has exceeded US$400 million, fully demonstrating our confidence in the high-quality development prospects of China as it enters a new era.”

Co-investor CDH Investments, founded in 2002, currently manages assets exceeding RMB 120 billion. In the TMT sector, it has invested in projects such as Qihoo 360, Tujia, and Fangduoduo.

Matrix Partners China, a co-investor in SoYoung’s Series A round, continued to participate in its Series B and Series D financing rounds. Wang Huadong, Partner at Matrix Partners China, stated, “As one of SoYoung’s earliest investors, we have witnessed over the past three years its evolution from a community platform to a transactional marketplace, and further to a comprehensive platform offering industry chain services. During this period, we have also observed the growth of Jin Xing and his team.”

In addition, TrustBridge Partners, a co-investor, was an investor in So-Young’s Series B round and participated again in its Series D round. TrustBridge Partners is an offshore investment fund management platform focused on investing in the Chinese market, with portfolio companies including Dianping/Meituan, Haodf Online, Douban, and 360, among other well-known enterprises.

Guo Ruyi, Founding Partner of Taihe Capital, the exclusive financial advisor, stated that So-Young has achieved strong commercial monetization and profitability by leveraging high-quality content to drive traffic, converting transactions through its brand and trust systems, building a user-centric standardized service optimization system, and gradually transforming the upstream supply chain.

Jin Xing revealed that SoYoung had already achieved profitability in 2016, with its online gross merchandise volume (GMV) exceeding RMB 6 billion in 2017. SoYoung has surpassed the domestic IPO thresholds in terms of both revenue and profit.

According to a Deloitte report, China’s medical aesthetics market reached RMB 176 billion in 2017 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 40% through 2020. The “SoYoung 2017 White Paper on the Medical Aesthetics Industry,” released on August 8 this year, noted that one in every 2.5 cosmetic procedure consumers worldwide is Chinese, and that 53 out of every 100 individuals undergoing cosmetic procedures in China are born in the 1990s, indicating a trend toward younger demographics.

In the traditional medical aesthetics industry, institutions primarily acquire customers through offline channel agents and online comprehensive search engine platforms, with marketing costs accounting for more than 50% of total revenue.

SoYoung’s goal is to bring together compliant institutions, licensed physicians, aesthetic medicine consumers, and upstream manufacturers within the industry, thereby enabling efficient connectivity and rapid feedback across the upstream, midstream, and downstream segments of the aesthetic medicine sector. This aims to eliminate information asymmetry and excessive profiteering prevalent in the industry, fostering an open environment characterized by price transparency and healthy competition.

CDH Investments stated: “Through our observation and research of downstream medical aesthetics apps, we have found that So-Young holds distinct advantages over its competitors. Furthermore, the founder demonstrates keen internet acumen and a profound understanding of business models, while the team exhibits strong strategic vision and execution capabilities. We are highly optimistic that So-Young will address more valuable industry pain points within the broad medical aesthetics sector, penetrate deeper into various aspects of medical aesthetic health, and emerge as an influential leading platform in the industry.”

In terms of specific strategy, So-Young initially focused on minimally invasive procedures and physician-founded clinics as its entry points. Its underlying logic revolves around consumer reviews, which, combined with robust operational capabilities, facilitates a dual-engine drive between users and merchants. This synergistic relationship fosters a spiral upward trajectory for both parties.

Medical aesthetics consumption differs from mature markets such as clothing, food, housing, and transportation. With only a decade of marketization, it requires substantial consumer education and guidance before purchase decisions are made. Safety is the primary concern for users. To ensure high levels of safety and satisfaction for consumers, So-Young mandates that only licensed and high-quality hospitals and physicians may join its platform. Additionally, So-Young has deployed dedicated personnel in 220 cities to conduct on-site verification of the qualifications, local reputation, and operational status of these hospitals and physicians.

In August 2016, SoYoung partnered with Taikang Online to launch “Oxygen Protect,” the first insurance policy covering aesthetic procedure outcomes. The policy covers 37 medical aesthetic procedures, with the entire claims process completed online within 30 days.

While ensuring safety, the So-Young platform has accumulated 3.3 million cosmetic surgery diaries written by consumers over four years, helping potential customers address their needs for visible real-world results and standardized evaluations of clinic services. Through user-generated photo-and-text testimonials, it assists in consumer decision-making.

To more precisely assist users in making medical aesthetic decisions, SoYoung has invested in aesthetic research, quantitatively and systematically standardizing the otherwise subjective concept of “beauty.” By integrating user data with multidisciplinary insights—including facial anatomy and aesthetic psychology—the company provides comprehensive, science-based aesthetic and medical recommendations. These recommendations are grounded in three temperament types and 24 localized aesthetic details, addressing consumers’ deep-seated need for personalized, safe, and reliable aesthetic enhancements.

In the offline sector, the So-Young team provides in-depth assistance to institutions in completing their digital transformation, effectively serving as an external online marketing arm for its partners. In turn, these offline partner institutions have become an integral part of So-Young’s own team. This interactive integration with partners has been key to So-Young’s rapid growth.

Currently, 6,600 licensed medical aesthetic institutions and 25,814 licensed physicians have joined SoYoung, covering more than 95% of the legitimate medical aesthetic service providers in mainland China.

Jin Xing told reporters, “We have gone deep into hospitals, providing hands-on guidance on how to operate on the platform, including how to design service packages and set pricing.”

In the new round of industry division of labor, So-Young assumes multiple functions, including marketing, service portfolio design, online consultation, and post-operative management, enabling medical institutions to focus solely on delivering healthcare services and dedicating themselves to refining medical techniques and research, thereby providing better services to users.

SoYoung believes that future users will be distributed across various independent scenarios, whether online social, reading, and live-streaming environments, or offline service settings. SoYoung will deliver tailored services closely aligned with these user scenarios, such as through WeChat Mini Programs in the WeChat ecosystem and utility tools like “appointment booking” within institutional service contexts.

SoYoung’s strategic direction is to integrate high-quality medical aesthetic experiences into every user scenario, positioning SoYoung as an accessible, on-demand personal medical aesthetics expert.