From $45M Medical Device Factory to 'Didi-Style' Caregiver Sharing: How Shouhuyun is Building a Smart Elderly Care Ecosystem

“Your smartwatch for the elderly was featured on Xinwen Lianbo!“This news was first discovered and shared with Wan Xinda, founder of Shenzhen Qianhai Guardian Cloud, by a friend.”

Here is how it happened: On February 10 of this year, Xinwen Lianbo (CCTV News Broadcast) reported that an elderly woman at a Beijing community elderly care service station got lost while traveling. She pressed the emergency SOS button on her smartwatch, enabling the service station to immediately pinpoint her location via the watch’s positioning feature and bring her back safely. This entire process was made possible by the Shouhuyun (Guardian Cloud) smartwatch worn by the elderly woman.

Shouhuyun's T9 Smartwatch for the Elderly Featured on Xinwen Lianbo

This was the most “high-profile” public commendation Shouhu Yun received for rescuing an elderly person. Wan Xinda also told VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) that since the launch of the Shouhu Yun Smart Home Elderly Care Platform in April 2016, merelyThere have been more than 10 instances of recognition and commendation in newspapers across various regions., each time because he saved the elderly person's life at a critical moment.

However, this company, which specializes in smart hardware for the elderly, is not only laying out hardware and its connected network platform, but also building a smart service system centered around elderly care needs. Two years ago, Shenzhen Qianhai Shouhuyun Health Management Company was already established; and in early 2017, the issued“The Action Plan for the Development of the Smart Health and Elderly Care Industry (2017–2020)” aligns perfectly with Shouhuyun’s business plan.. It was like a strong wind; they, waiting at the wind’s eye, had already figured out how to take off.

Wanxinda began developing mobile phones for the elderly at an early stage. “At that time, feature phones for seniors were defined by the ‘Five Bigs’: loud volume, large fonts, big screens, oversized buttons, and high-capacity batteries.” These devices addressed the issue of usability convenience for older adults, yetNot truly integrated with elderly care. In the course of interacting with the elderly, he discovered that traditional eldercare models were increasingly inadequate in meeting their needs, which inspired him to establish a company that seamlessly integrates smart hardware systems with eldercare services.

What truly steeled Wan Xinda’s resolve to found Shouhu Yun was the passing of a loved one. His uncle, a rural elder accustomed to physical labor, suddenly suffered a myocardial infarction while working in his vegetable field one day and collapsed there. He was ultimately discovered only after heat-induced decomposition had set in. In the wake of shock and grief, Wan began to contemplate how to develop a product capable of detecting early warning signs of medical emergencies in the elderly and alerting both family members and healthcare professionals.

Over years of observing the elderly care industry, he discoveredIt is widely believed that the elderly care industry offers low income and limited career growth, which has indirectly contributed to the current state of subpar quality in China’s elderly care services.. Only when an increasing number of elderly care enterprises identify pathways to profitability and the income of elderly care service personnel rises can a virtuous cycle of quality improvement and profitability be established.

After sharing his vision with friends from various sectors of society, Wan Xinda garnered widespread support. Subsequently, a core team with strong technical expertise was gradually established. Mr. Wan previously served as Regional Vice President and General Manager at Konka Group’s Shenzhen headquarters and founded Tiancheng Technology in 2009, which specialized in mobile phones for the elderly. Wang Zhiqiang, Deputy General Manager, has many years of experience working at listed companies and overseas, bringing extensive expertise in smart hardware R&D and supply chain management. Yu Xiangxin, Head of Software R&D, is the former Technical Director at Tencent Research Institute. Dr. Deng Wuguo, Dean of the Health Research Institute, is a talent introduced under China’s national recruitment programs.

“The scope of the elderly care and general health industry is vast. In terms of institutional elderly care, there are numerous nursing homes and elderly care service centers that receive government subsidies; however, in”In the realm of home-based elderly care, state subsidies are difficult to implement; current explorations by various stakeholders remain limited in scope and lack depth.。”

What Shouhu Yun aims to do is conduct an in-depth exploration of home-based elderly care, which remains the mainstream model, and community-based elderly care, which closely complements it. A major drawback of home-based care is the inability to implement centralized management as seen in institutional care facilities; therefore, the introduction of a smart elderly care system to provide point-to-point services has become a necessity.

In simple terms, Shouhu Yun aims to leverage its expertise in smart hardware for the elderly to transmit seniors’ health and safety needs to their children and caregivers, while continuously collecting and automatically analyzing health data to provide rational healthy-living recommendations and share them with medical institutions.

Guardian Cloud: Smartwatch and App Data Monitoring

“Many adult children provide insufficient care for their elderly parents, remaining unaware of their health status and even finding themselves at a loss for words during phone calls. However, with the use of Shouhu Yun’s smart hardware, any abnormalities can be promptly notified to the children via the mobile app. I have personally experienced significantly improved communication with my parents; whenever an anomaly is flagged, I immediately call them to remind them to take care of their health.” This device-app integrated platform’sThe number of real-time online users has exceeded 300,000., and active data is growing rapidly.

To achieve accurate metric measurement, Shouhu Cloud persists inEstablishing a factory with Class II medical device manufacturing qualifications, i.e., 2016Ma'anshan Shouhuyun, a wholly-owned subsidiary established with an investment of 45 million yuan, primarily engaged in the research, development, and production of IoT-enabled blood pressure monitors, glucometers, and intelligent care robots.

Shouhuyun's Self-Built Smart Medical Device Base

The most important reason for ensuring data accuracy is that Guardian Cloud mustProviding Effective Data Support for the Medical Needs of the ElderlyLeveraging the tiered diagnosis and treatment policy and policies supporting integrated medical and elderly care, Shouhu Yun has built a platform that connects the healthcare needs of the elderly with community medical resources. Community physicians can access daily physiological indicators of seniors within their jurisdiction and refer to long-term data collected from smart devices during consultations. Furthermore, the platform has streamlined green channels for elderly medical care and facilitated health insurance payment processes.

And inRegarding the "care and maintenance" needs of elderly care, Shouhu Cloud has partnered with elderly care service centers within communities to provide health management services for seniors, enabling precise tracking of the elderly within a 500-meter radius of the community. Currently, they have also introduced a special new role into their system—Guardian Cloud Ambassador。

This can be described as aThe "Didi Model" for Caregivers, individuals from housekeeping agencies, property management firms, and even caring middle-aged residents within the community can become “Guardian Cloud Envoys” by passing the platform’s examinations. They earn compensation by providing elderly care, housekeeping, and other services. These “Envoys” are subject to a rigorous evaluation and reward-penalty mechanism. They must possess valid health certificates and proof of local registration, and they will undergo periodic centralized training as well as remote video-based training.

The Guardian Cloud Special Envoys program was officially launched in March this year, with pilot programs initiated in Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, and other regions. Wan Xinda introduced that some diligent “Special Envoys” have already achieved monthly incomes exceeding 10,000 yuan on the platform.

Currently, the Shouhuyun team comprises nearly 50 members, with R&D personnel accounting for more than half.InThe company has secured patents for device Bluetooth recognition and sleep monitoring, establishing an industry-leading position in this field.“Our hardware operations have generated substantial profits, and we will continue to invest in research and development. A new platform will be launched in June, featuring enhanced stability and security.”

Within the industry, Shouhu Yun has established partnerships with over 200 home-based elderly care centers and domestic service companies. Additionally, it has collaborated with Kangmei Pharmaceutical on smart pharmacy initiatives and maintains business relationships with Haiwang Group’s National Health Cloud and Ping An Insurance. Spanning IoT-enabled smart hardware for elderly care, home-based life services, health management, pharmaceuticals and health supplements, and insurance, these diverse sectors are progressively enriching Shouhu Yun’s ecosystem, with new ventures continuously being integrated.

To Date, Guardian CloudHas secured RMB 3 million in angel-round financing, and is preparing for its next Series A financing round. It was revealed that the company isA substantial financing round will be received in June this year.. However, Wanxinda stated that what enterprises value most is not capital, but the follow-up development resources brought by investors.

Guardian Cloud’s plan for this year is to establish a presence in the South and Central China regions. Over the next five years, it has set several additional goals: establishing an integrated industry-academia-research institute for chronic disease management, creating a Sino-foreign elderly care exchange center, and entering the senior living real estate market.

The founder also stated that, as mindsets shift, integrated medical and elderly care institutions may become the preferred choice for more people in the future. Phase II of the Shouhu Yun project may also incorporate institutional elderly care services, providing facilities with comprehensive management systems and supplying trained elderly care personnel.

Wan Xinda also succinctly articulated the core essence of elderly care: “We have always believed that caring for the elderly is not only a societal responsibility but also an obligation that children must fulfill. What Shouhu Yun aims to achieve is to enable children to participate in their parents’ elder care through devices and network technologies.”Technology is a means, while the care of loved ones is the source of happiness for the elderly.”

All data related to the enterprise in this article were provided and confirmed by the interviewees.