Yaocai Maimai Secures RMB 20 Million Series A Funding to Build a Global Herbal Medicine Trading Platform

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) reported on March 22 that the B2B e-commerce platform for traditional Chinese medicinal materials, “Yaocai Maimai Wang,” has announced the completion of its RMB 20 million Series A financing round. The investing institution was the Shanghai Health and Medical Industry Investment Fund, managed by Ruijian Capital.

According to VCBeat, Yaocai Maimai Wang was established in July 2015 as a B2B e-commerce platform for medicinal herb trading. Affiliated with Shanghai Mianguan E-Commerce Co., Ltd., the platform shortens intermediary links and provides transaction services through a “matchmaking + self-operated” model. Previously, at its inception, Yaocai Maimai Wang secured RMB 10 million in angel-round investment from Wang Gang, an angel investor in Didi Chuxing.

According to Guo Mian, founder and CEO of Yaocai Maimai Wang (Herb Trade Network), the platform leverages SaaS and warehousing logistics systems to eliminate intermediaries, providing one-stop trading services for clients across the herbal medicine industry chain. Building on its B2B foundation, the company has pioneered an F2F (Farmer-to-Facility) model, enabling farmers and herbal merchants to sell their products globally via cloud-based digital platforms. Aiming to establish a professional global internet-based herbal medicine trading platform, it delivers authentic and efficient one-stop transaction solutions for industry stakeholders. The platform operates with a dual L-shaped structure—domestic and international—connecting farmers directly to end-user manufacturers.

The Medicinal Herbs Trading Network platform has launched with nearly 900 types of traditional Chinese medicinal materials, covering categories such as whole herbs, flowers, fruits and seeds/kernels, and roots and rhizomes. The platform brings together herbal farmers and cooperatives from multiple regions, including Yunnan, Guangxi, Gansu, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Northeast China. A professional database has been established, containing information on herb images, categories, grades, origins, scientific names, aliases, English names, and Latin names.

Medicinal Materials Trading Network Page

The platform’s buyers are primarily domestic wholesalers, as well as overseas manufacturers of decoction pieces, pharmaceutical companies, traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, cosmetics manufacturers, food and beverage producers, wholesalers, and even sellers on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.

According to the official statement from Yaocai Maomai Wang (Herbal Medicine Trading Network), after more than a year of operation, the platform has accumulated nearly 300,000 customers, with a transaction volume exceeding RMB 1.3 billion, accounting for 3% of the industry's total output. Every day, tens of thousands of customers with inventory list spot goods on the Yaocai Maomai Wang platform, and approximately 15,000 buyer groups regularly use the platform to search for available stock or commission Yaocai Maomai Wang to source specific herbs. Yaocai Maomai Wang has reached over 9,000 farmers and more than 18,000 cooperatives, established partnerships with 142 pharmaceutical manufacturers, and serves clients across 110 regions in 40 countries. The company has set up six branch offices in Bozhou, Anguo, Yulin, Chengdu, Dingxi, and Kunming, gradually forming a nationwide distribution network for Chinese herbal medicines.

The platform has currently achieved a near-monopoly over all information entry points, with its next strategic objective being the monopolization of purchase order entry points, thereby creating an interactive synergy between the two. The industry utilizes approximately 1,200 commonly used medicinal herbs, of which the platform offers over 900 varieties, covering roughly 70% of the market. With business operations distributed across China, the platform processes more than 1,000 orders per month.

Xu Huasheng, Executive Partner of the Shanghai Health and Medical Industry Investment Fund and the lead investor in this round, stated that with the promulgation of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Law and the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative, TCM has been elevated to a national strategy, ushering in unprecedented opportunities for development. As a cultural symbol of the Chinese nation, TCM is also seizing the opportunity to go global. However, the TCM sector, particularly the upstream segment involving raw medicinal materials, continues to suffer from long-standing issues such as inconsistent quality and unscrupulous vendors passing off inferior products as premium ones. These supply-side problems severely constrain industrial growth.

“As a startup B2B platform for traditional Chinese medicinal materials, Yaocai Maomai Wang deeply engages in the trading process and strictly controls the quality of medicinal materials. Its innovations in business model, operational capabilities, and technology have gained initial market recognition, demonstrating high growth potential and the ability to address longstanding industry challenges,” said Xu Huasheng.

In terms of policy, the General Office of the State Council issued a document last May explicitly stating that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) would participate in the “Belt and Road Initiative.” Coupled with the digitalization of TCM herbal materials, e-commerce platforms for these materials will undoubtedly facilitate the coordinated development of the TCM industry, support the global expansion of TCM herbs along the “Belt and Road” routes, and help establish a full-industry-chain traceability system for TCM. Since its inception, Yaocai Maimai Wang has adhered to a dual-track strategy, operating simultaneously in domestic and international markets, taking root in China while expanding globally.

According to Yu Shasha, co-founder of the Medicinal Materials Trading Network, the platform currently collaborates with over 100 enterprises from more than 40 countries and regions, including the United States, Canada, Colombia, Dubai, Japan, South Korea, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Ms. Yu also expressed her hope that the platform’s persistent efforts in the international market will lay a solid foundation for the global expansion of the traditional Chinese medicinal materials industry and enhance the international influence of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) health services.

With the successful closing of its RMB 20 million Series A financing round, what strategic initiatives will Yaocai Maimai (Herbal Medicine Trading) roll out? Guo Mian stated that the new round of strategic financing will be primarily allocated to team building, technological research and development, and market expansion. Guo Mian further emphasized that Yaocai Maimai aims to create a significant impact in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sector, providing more comprehensive and convenient one-stop health industry services to upstream and downstream stakeholders across the TCM supply chain.