Ping An Launches $1 Billion Global Voyager Fund Targeting FinTech and HealthTech

VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China willEstablish a $1 billion fund,Investments in Global Finance and HealthTech, which marks Ping An Insurance’s preparations to expand its brand and business into overseas markets.

As the world’s largest insurer by market capitalization and the fourth-largest by total assets, Ping An Insurance has built a strong reputation for its technological investments in relevant sectors. Its landmark breakthrough in the financial sector is Lufax, its wealth management platform valued at $19 billion. In the healthcare sector, notable ventures include Ping An Good Doctor, a health-focused app established in April 2015 that raised $500 million in financing in 2016 at a $3 billion valuation, as well as Yi Zhang Tong (a unified medical insurance account service) and Wan Jia Clinics. To date, Ping An Good Doctor has served over 140 million users, with peak monthly active users reaching 18.79 million. Yi Zhang Tong has expanded to more than 200 cities across China, serving a population of over 500 million.

Bloomberg: Ping An Good Doctor, launched in 2015

The newly established fund, named “Global Voyager,” will be chaired and led as CEO by Jonathan Larsen (Luo Zhongheng), who served at Citigroup for 18 years and previously held the position of President of Global Consumer Banking. He will also serve as Chief Innovation Officer of Ping An Group. In this capacity, he will be responsible for researching, investing in, introducing, incubating, and managing the group’s innovation initiatives, with a particular focus on bringing in globally leading fintech and health-tech solutions aligned with the group’s core business directions. Financial services and healthcare are the two key strategic pillars for Ping An Group’s future development.

“Ping An Group currently focuses primarily on the Chinese market, but it has reached a point where it needs to seek expansion opportunities, and this fund precisely provides an avenue for outward growth,” Larsen said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The new fund, starting with an initial capital of $1 billion, is expected to be fully deployed for investments within three to four years. The portfolio companies will vary significantly in size, ranging from early-stage startups to established enterprises poised for expansion.

Ping An China reported a first-quarter profit of RMB 23 billion last month, an 11% year-on-year increase, with a customer base of 138 million. Going forward, the fund will provide portfolio companies in the healthcare and fintech sectors with a super-platform boasting a massive user base.

As the investment frenzy in current healthcare applications gradually cools, Jonathan Larsen stated,There is a certain bubble in the mobile health investment sector, but people should recognize that this bubble exists worldwide and is not unique to China.“This means we must grasp the essence, clarify our objectives, and properly manage the investment allocation for new funds.”

It is reported that Ma Mingzhe, the helmsman of Ping An Group, stated in an interview with The 21st Century Business Herald that Ping An aims to develop a “comprehensive healthcare” industry and aspires to be aA comprehensive platform connecting users, insurance companies, public health insurance programs, hospitals, clinics, testing and inspection institutions, emerging smart devices, and various health service providers.。

An analysis of Ping An's grand health strategy reveals four major business segments: healthcare services, basic medical insurance, commercial insurance, and Health Cloud.

In terms of health and medical services, by leveraging Ping An Good Doctor and Wanjia Clinics, we integrate high-quality medical resources—including hospitals, physical examination centers, health monitoring institutions, clinics, physicians from Grade A tertiary hospitals, and our self-built family doctor teams—across both online and offline channels to establish a one-stop, end-to-end O2O health management and medical service platform.

In terms of healthcare payment, medical insurance and commercial insurance work in tandem to serve as the core payers for the medical platform.

In terms of the Health Cloud, Ping An has partnered with over 100 medical institutions in pilot cities through its cloud platform to digitize patient case data and establish electronic health records.