Tencent's Deepening Footprint in Future Healthcare: Strategic Investments and Innovations

Tencent’s most recent investment appears to be its strategic C+ round funding of the fitness app Keep. Far from cash-strapped, Tencent has established a presence in big data processing, cloud-based database storage, artificial intelligence, gaming, film and television, and even space rocketry. Naturally, in the booming healthcare sector, Tencent has also invested in numerous companies. Beyond well-known names such as PICOOC (Youpin), DXY, WeDoctor (Guahaowang), Zhuojian, and Medlinker, Tencent has made several low-profile moves. VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) digs into these quietly backed healthcare technology firms.

Medbanks Network Technology, founded in 2014, has a founding team primarily drawn from the oncology divisions of multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer, Roche, and Pfizer. The company is a data platform focused on the oncology sector, leveraging this foundation to develop intelligent diagnosis and treatment systems and provide comprehensive solutions aimed at improving the standard of cancer diagnosis and treatment as well as enhancing clinicians’ workflow efficiency. Tencent participated in the company’s Series B financing round in June 2016, investing tens of millions of U.S. dollars, though the exact amount remains undisclosed.

To address the significant research obstacle of insufficiently effective data collection and support in the oncology field, Si Pai Network, under the leadership of a medical team composed entirely of oncologists and medical affairs heads from multiple multinational pharmaceutical companies, has built a massive oncology data platform in China based on the SPAE concept. This platform integrates security, professionalism, ease of use, and scalability. To date, Si Pai Network has collaborated with numerous academic societies, key hospitals, and departments to successfully develop and operate databases for various types of cancer across China. The covered conditions include all common malignancies such as lung cancer, breast cancer, and liver cancer, providing data support for physicians and researchers in both clinical practice and scientific research.

It currently covers major cancer hospitals and a large number of oncologists across China, becoming an indispensable partner for oncology experts in their clinical practice and research, as well as an important tool for physicians’ continuing clinical education.

Yonghong Tech, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Beijing, leverages its one-stop big data analytics platform to provide hospital executive and management teams with decision-support insights into overall institutional operations, while also enabling self-service analytics for business departments to meet the needs of exploratory medical analysis. In May 2016, Tencent led the company’s Series C financing round with a $30 million investment, joined by Oriental Fortune Capital, Matrix Partners China, Genesis Capital, and iResearch Group. Following this funding round, the company’s valuation reached $462 million.

The current landscape is that hospital information systems, such as Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR), have been extensively developed. However, areas like computer-aided medical care, Hospital Executive Decision Support Systems, and Clinical Decision Support Systems remain largely undeveloped. Faced with massive volumes of data, healthcare administrators struggle to rapidly extract key insights from hospital big data for decision-making purposes. The company’s proprietary business intelligence platform, Z-Suite, comprises a suite of business intelligence products built on a Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architecture. It not only responds swiftly to emerging analytical needs and changes, integrates disparate hospital information systems, breaks down data silos, and enables data sharing, but also presents analytical results to executive leadership through rich, visually appealing charts and dashboards.

Founder He Chuntao has worked for decades in the fields of high-performance and big data business intelligence. The Yonghong R&D team began developing big data products in 2008, serving multinational corporations and global institutions across Europe, Australia, and the Americas, achieving significant success.

Circle Medical, headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a startup co-founded by George Favvas, Jean-Sebastien Boulanger, and Brent LaRue, who bring extensive experience in software engineering and healthcare. The company’s core business is providing users with non-emergency comprehensive medical services, such as physical examinations, flu vaccinations, blood tests, chronic disease management, and general standard care. The platform connects users with professional primary care physicians, allowing patients to receive consultations at any scheduled location. In November 2015, Circle Medical raised $2.9 million in funding, led by Collaborative Fund, with participation from Tencent, Real Ventures, Kima Ventures, and others.

Unlike the situation in China, in-home visits by private physicians are relatively common in the United States. To use the service, patients simply need to scan their insurance cards via the Circle Medical app to obtain an estimated cost based on the prompts provided. Leveraging GPS location services, patients can select the nearest available physician and easily schedule an in-home visit by confirming the time and location. Patients need not be concerned about provider safety, as all physicians on the platform are credentialed and certified. Currently, the company has established insurance partnerships with Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California, United Healthcare, Aetna, Health Net, and Cigna.

Watsi was founded in August 2012 and is headquartered in San Anselmo, California. As the world’s first non-profit medical crowdfunding organization, it seeks to leverage the “crowdfunding model” to provide cost-effective and efficient healthcare services to individuals lacking access to medical care. Tencent has invested in Watsi twice, with the most recent investment occurring in November 2015; the specific amounts remain undisclosed.

Watsi’s services have a global reach, with a minimum donation threshold of $5. The company aims to foster direct connections between donors and beneficiaries in developing countries, enabling donors to understand patients’ actual hardships, including the specific medical care required and associated costs. Donors can track the status of their contributions in real time via the app after making a donation. To ensure the accuracy of donations, all patient verification materials are currently validated by Watsi and multiple third-party organizations, including Partners In Health, GiveWell, CNN, ABC, and HBO. As of June this year, Watsi had raised $18,562 in donations for 8,112 patients across 23 countries.

Moreover, for costly procedures such as cardiac surgery, Watsi reduces treatment costs through in-depth collaborations with healthcare institutions and physicians. According to Chase Adam, founder of Watsi, these professionals can leverage their spare time to provide medical equipment and services to patients, thereby achieving the platform’s goal of “high impact, low cost.” Additionally, surgical fees in developing countries are lower than those in the United States.

CliniCloud is a technology company dedicated to bringing healthcare into the home. Founded in 2014 by two Chinese-American physicians born after 1985, Hon Weng Chong and Andrew Lin, the company focuses on the development of smart home medical devices, with its flagship products being an infrared thermometer and a smart stethoscope. In September 2015, CliniCloud secured a seed funding round led jointly by Ping An Ventures and Tencent; the exact amount was undisclosed, although it was reported to be $5 million.

By using the CliniCloud platform, patients can conveniently perform self-health checks at home. An infrared thermometer enables non-contact temperature measurement, while a smart stethoscope records vital signs such as heart rate and respiratory rate. The measurement results are displayed on the CliniCloud mobile app and then transmitted to physicians via Bluetooth. Patients no longer need to visit hospitals, as doctors can complete diagnoses remotely through video consultations, thereby saving time and reducing healthcare resource costs.

Currently, CliniCloud is working hard to develop automated disease diagnosis features for conditions such as asthma, pneumonia, and congestive heart failure, as the company claims that many common symptoms can be identified solely through the sounds of breathing and heartbeat.

Practo is a star startup from India, headquartered in Bangalore. It was founded in May 2008 by its current CEO, Shashank ND, and CTO, Abhinav Lal. In 2015, Practo completed a new round of $90 million in financing, led by Tencent.

Practo’s core offerings include Practo Reach, a paid service for physicians; Practo Profile, a complimentary service for physicians; and Practo.com, which leverages its proprietary search engine to help patients find and book appointments with doctors. Practo holds inherent advantages in physician resources and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Once doctors subscribe to Practo Reach and Practo Profile, patients can search for their detailed information. The latter is a free service that provides only basic information, such as medical qualifications, years of practice, and practice locations. Practo.com allows consumers to search for and book appointments with appropriate healthcare professionals, such as dentists and specialists, and offers a mobile application that enables filtering of search results by location, consultation fees, and other criteria. Practo employs a patented algorithm that automatically ranks doctors on its platform based on user needs, including factors such as geographic location, specialty, patient feedback, and appointment experiences.

Practo also provides doctors with the medical management tool Practo Ray, enabling clinics to digitally manage scheduling, pharmaceutical inventory, billing, and other services. The platform currently has over 1.5 million registered users and has expanded its operations to Singapore and the Philippines.

HomeHero, founded in May 2013, is a healthcare company providing in-home nursing services. Headquartered in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, it has become the largest home care platform in California. In [Month] 2015, Tencent participated in HomeHero’s $20 million Series A financing round. To date, the company’s total funding has exceeded $23 million.

Through this platform, users can find the caregiving professionals they need. The platform features well-trained “Heroes” who provide services such as personal care and companionship, transitional care, post-operative rehabilitation, medication management, transportation, and assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs), with a particular focus on the elderly market. All caregivers on the platform hold professional certifications as Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA), Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVN), or Home Health Aides (HHA). The service costs approximately $22 per hour. The booking process is straightforward: users simply describe their care needs and plans to a health advisor via the app. HomeHero then matches them with suitable caregivers through remote video consultations. Additionally, the platform employs professional data analytics tools to provide real-time feedback to families.

Tute Genomics, founded in 2012, is a cloud-based genomic database company aimed at promoting widespread genetic sequencing. In March 2015, Tute Genomics announced a partnership with Google, making its vast genomic data available on the Google Genomics platform for public access and use.TencentInvested $3.9 million in the company’s Series A+ financing round in June 2015.

Tute Genomics collaborates with leading hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, technology companies, and patient advocacy groups. It not only integrates public data from genomic initiatives such as the 1000 Genomes Project and the NHLBI ESP-6500, but also incorporates its proprietary prediction system capable of assessing the biological relevance of various gene sequences. Tute Genomics provides a cloud-based genomic analysis solution that helps researchers interpret sequence data ranging from human exomes to whole genomes. Additionally, as an “annotated” database, Tute Genomics offers interpretations for numerous genetic variants.

Tissue Analytics, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, specializes in remote chronic wound care, with its team aiming to build a revolutionary platform in the niche field of wound management. In May 2015, the company secured $750,000 in seed funding, led by Tencent.

The software developed by Tissue Analytics is HIPAA-compliant. Users need only capture images of wounds using their smartphone cameras, and the system will automatically measure various wound metrics—such as surface area, length, and width—to quantify healing progress. Co-developed in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, this digital diagnostic technology improves accuracy and therapeutic efficacy by 40% compared to conventional wound care. Currently, the application is favored not only by individual users but also by healthcare professionals in clinics and medical institutions, owing to its ease of use.

Tissue Analytics aims to provide a simpler remote chronic wound care solution through this approach, sparing patients the hardship of traveling between hospitals and enabling physicians to remotely manage multiple patients. Currently, however, the platform is primarily focused on data collection and analysis. While it may eventually incorporate diagnostic services, Tissue Analytics’ long-term goal is to deliver an enterprise-grade SaaS platform to healthcare institutions and insurance providers.

CloudMedx Inc. was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company’s core business focuses on big data integration and decision support. It collects real-time data from diverse patients across numerous hospitals, processes and analyzes this information, and provides healthcare institutions with HIPAA-compliant (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) health predictions and analytics. By analyzing raw patient data, CloudMedx can identify trends in disease progression, occurrence patterns, deviations, and predicted probable outcomes, thereby offering valuable references for clinical treatment and early detection and diagnosis. In May 2015, the company secured $6.6 million in financing, with Tencent as one of the investors; the specific amount invested by Tencent remains undisclosed.

By leveraging large-scale, in-depth NLP-based machine learning algorithms and integrating clinical data from 10 million patient records across leading medical institutions, CloudMedx provides decision-support capabilities for healthcare administrative bodies. For instance, the platform can predict readmission risks based on patients’ hospitalization status. Data provided by the company shows that its system has helped participating hospitals reduce their readmission rates by 30%. Readmissions often indicate complications such as secondary infections or disease recurrence. Currently, CloudMedx is compatible with 18 major EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems, offering intelligent operational support to healthcare institutions through real-time patient alerts and risk management.

Scanadu, founded in 2011 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, focuses on the health diagnostics market, enabling real-time monitoring of patients’ health status through continuous tracking and testing. In April 2015, the company secured $35 million in Series B financing, with Tencent participating as an investor to strengthen its presence in the health device diagnostics sector.

The company’s flagship product is the Scanadu Scout, a medical device capable of measuring heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature. It raised $1.6 million in crowdfunding within less than a month of its launch. According to founder Walter De Brouwer, the product was inspired by Star Trek. Equipped with built-in sensors, it helps physicians diagnose diseases and collect patients’ physiological data. By integrating artificial intelligence, mobile technology, and cloud-based data processing, the device provides clinical decision support for doctors.

The device is also very easy to use. It connects to a smartphone via an app and Bluetooth, enabling users to complete the detection of various physiological indicators at home. In fact, the significance of the Scanadu Scout may lie not only in the accuracy or scientific validity of its data, but also in changing people’s health-related habits and establishing a new doctor-patient relationship.

It is evident that the Tencent empire has strategically positioned itself in the healthcare sector, closely integrating the internet with medical services and seeking to penetrate various segments of the healthcare delivery chain.

Author’s Correction: Upon verification, Linjia Yisheng is invested by Dexun Investment and is not affiliated with the Tencent ecosystem. This correction is hereby issued.