YouQiu Cloud Diagnosis Files IPO Prospectus: AI-Powered Disease Screening via Photos

Diagnosing diseases requires a combination of multiple approaches. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) relies on inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation, while Western medicine employs inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation. Despite their many differences, both TCM and Western medicine consider “visual inspection” indispensable and paramount in the diagnostic process. What if I told you that taking just a few photos could enable a preliminary diagnosis with considerable accuracy? Would you believe it? This is not a fantasy; “Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis” has made it a reality.

The Youqiu Cloud Clinic APP is an intelligent diagnostic platform that enables users to perform self-diagnosis of diseases and health conditions. Its most notable feature is the ability to accurately identify the cause of illness directly through a mobile app using just a few photos, eliminating the need for hospital visits and facilitating targeted medical care. Additionally, it provides personalized management services tailored to individual health status, including dietary management, chronic disease management, and exercise management.

Youqiu Cloud Clinic has completed a RMB 10 million Pre-A financing round. The funds are primarily allocated to the development of an intelligent health recognition system. The WeChat mini-program version is now live, featuring screening for five major types of cancer—lung, liver, gastric, breast, and cervical cancer—as well as assessments for cancer-prone constitutions. The mobile app version is scheduled to launch in six months.

The Ingenious Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine

Zhou Yihua, founder and CEO of the Qiu Yunzhen app, told VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat), “Qiu Yunzhen is a product that integrates intelligent diagnosis, big data, and imaging diagnostics. It leverages disease morphology derived from integrative medicine, which combines Traditional Chinese Medicine, Western medicine, and naturopathy.”

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnosis primarily relies on four methods: inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation, collectively known as the "Four Examinations." In addition to these standard examinations, TCM also employs methods that focus on localized body parts for disease diagnosis, such as face diagnosis, ear diagnosis, meridian diagnosis, hand diagnosis, and foot diagnosis, which reflect the principles of TCM holographic biomedicine. This process involves physicians using visual observation to assess changes in the patient's overall and local morphology for diagnostic purposes. Among the photos required by Youqiu Cloud Clinic, ear images are specifically utilized for ear diagnosis. Ear diagnosis is a simple yet effective method that aids in diagnosis and differential diagnosis by observing changes in auricular points, color, and morphology. TCM methods such as hand diagnosis, ear diagnosis, acupuncture, cupping, and Gua Sha have a substantial practical foundation in disease diagnosis and treatment. According to Zhou Yihua, Youqiu Cloud Clinic is based on reflex localization technology for otological disease manifestations, leveraging machine learning, big data, and artificial intelligence to prevent midline cancers and other physical diseases.

The core value of Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis lies in intelligent cloud-based diagnostics, leveraging artificial intelligence and big data to perform image analysis and intelligently extract and compare data for preliminary disease screening. Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis does not rely solely on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM); rather, TCM accounts for only 20% of its approach, while Western medicine constitutes 80%. The platform ingeniously integrates both TCM and Western medicine. Zhou Yihua stated, “Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis is backed by over 40 years of clinical experience and a substantial foundation in pathology.”

According to reports, Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis primarily employs DIMT (Data and Image Matching Technology), an artificial intelligence system based on deep learning of medical examination data and imaging data. Currently, the accuracy rate of DIMT for cancer screening ranges from 85% to 99%. DIMT efficiently addresses multiple application challenges, including timely feedback of results, mobile data collection, usage costs, and tumor/cancer prediction. The types of cancer currently identifiable by DIMT include: blood cancer (leukemia), lymphatic cancer (including lymphocytoma), liver cancer, gastric cancer, uterine cancer, neck cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, esophageal cancer, intestinal cancer, malignant lymphoma, nasopharyngeal cancer, kidney cancer, rectal cancer, ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer, skin cancer, prostate cancer, esophageal cancer, pancreatic cancer, bladder cancer, and bile duct cancer.

During the product development process, Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis established collaborations with over 100,000 physicians worldwide, collected millions of data points, and conducted comparative analyses on 300,000 clinical cases. The diagnostic results derived from image recognition were validated using modern medical methods. Reportedly, the diagnostic accuracy rate of Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis exceeds 95%.

Selfie-Based Diagnostic Apps

With smartphone-captured photos and developed AI-enhanced algorithms, this app enables any physician to better diagnose physical ailments. Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis employs cloud-based artificial intelligence technology in existing medical practice, utilizing smartphone cameras to perform “facial photography” for monitoring pathological features. This application allows patients to conduct self-examinations through simple “facial photography” captured by digital cameras. Users can download the app and instructional guides onto any device equipped with a digital camera. Upon uploading images to the app, the system automatically matches them against 40 years of pathological feature data, known disease imagery, and the patient’s historical images stored on cloud servers, significantly enhancing the accuracy and speed of disease detection for both physicians and patients.

Users need only upload clear photos of both hands, both ears, and the front of the face to quickly receive diagnostic results. The system also generates a summary of key data points, listing technologies urgently relevant to the user’s condition along with alerts for any suspicious image changes. If needed, it can notify relevant physicians to access and review printed patient data charts and whole-body disease images.

The healthcare sector has always been characterized by high technical barriers. According to Zhou Yihua, the relevant technologies have long existed but were never effectively integrated with the internet; this product emerged from the convergence of big data and internet technologies. Issues such as the subjective and vague nature of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnostic methods, the arbitrary subjectivity in syndrome differentiation and treatment, the dilemma of having no syndromes to differentiate, the lack of scientifically unified standards for evaluating therapeutic efficacy, and challenges in ensuring the safety of TCM compound formulations remain difficult to resolve fundamentally in the short term, thereby significantly hindering the academic development of TCM. Currently, big data is used to integrate TCM and Western medicine through data convergence, providing evidence-based insights from one perspective. Not only in diagnosis, but also during early-stage data collection and later-stage verification of diagnostic accuracy, Western medical tests and laboratory analyses serve as the reference standards.

Youqiu Yunzhen’s business model primarily relies on post-diagnostic solutions, including health planning and intervention, targeted pharmaceutical company promotions, physician-guided referrals, insurance services, third-party services, and paid Q&A.

Zhou Yihua possesses a robust background in commercial advertising. Prior to founding Youqiu Cloud Clinic, he successfully managed several startups in non-medical sectors, gaining extensive experience in management and promotion across a wide range of industries. The current founding partner has nearly 25 years of global experience in healthcare education and marketing, with a focus on providing precise peripheral diagnostics for cancer treatment. Huang Lichun serves as the Chief Diagnostic Advisor at Youqiu Cloud Clinic; she is not only a consultant for the World Society of Otology but also a doctoral supervisor at the American University of Chinese Medicine. Zeng Lingxuan, the current President of Beijing Rentai International Medical Center, serves as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and holds a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from the United States and a Doctorate in Oriental Medicine from Canada.

The primary development direction for Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis in the future is to provide comprehensive, diverse, and timely updated medical information resources. In the coming phases, Youqiu Cloud Diagnosis will incrementally expand the number of diagnosable conditions, scaling from the current identification of 20–50 ailments to nearly 500 diseases, with the goal of gradually achieving full disease coverage and delivering precise medical solutions.