Yunyimei Files IPO Prospectus: Building the 'Dianping' of the Aesthetic Medicine Industry

For medical aesthetics institutions, providing users with a high-quality experience is their fundamental responsibility. As an increasing number of individuals seeking aesthetic improvements turned to Tan Bin for assistance, a new idea gradually took shape in his mind to better serve them: creating a “Dianping-style” review platform for the medical aesthetics industry, thereby alleviating the confusion patients face when choosing doctors or clinics. This platform is Yun Yimei (Cloud Medical Aesthetics). Meanwhile, Yun Yimei also serves as a mobile online system for customer relationship management, helping doctors and medical institutions manage existing clients and acquire new ones. It enables practitioners and facilities to effortlessly maintain their client base and build their brand through accumulated third-party reviews and reputation. Currently, Yun Yimei offers doctor screening services to users via its WeChat public account and PC-based platform.

The global demand for medical aesthetics is substantial, with growth accelerating in recent years.

China’s aesthetic and reconstructive surgery industry began its true development relatively late. During the 1960s and 1970s, plastic surgery procedures were primarily limited to simple corrective surgeries for congenital or acquired deformities. It was not until the early 21st century that the sector gradually expanded, increasingly aligned with international standards, and became an indispensable component of China’s economy.

Globally, since the beginning of the 21st century, the medical aesthetics industry has become the third largest industry, trailing only the automotive and aviation sectors. According to expert estimates, the global annual market size is approximately $150 billion, and it is projected that one-third of the future Fortune Global 500 companies will be enterprises engaged in the research, production, and sales of medical aesthetic technologies.

According to data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), the global compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for cosmetic surgery and procedures from 2011 to 2013 reached 18.5%, while China’s medical aesthetics industry has long maintained a growth rate exceeding 20%. Data published by The Economist in 2012 indicated that in 2010, South Korea performed approximately 16 cosmetic surgical procedures per 1,000 people, whereas China performed only about one procedure per 1,000 people, ranking 24th globally. In terms of total volume, the United States accounted for 17.5% of all cosmetic surgical procedures worldwide, ranking first, while China accounted for 12.7%, making it the third-largest market globally. Data from CCTV.com also showed that in 2013, the output value of China’s medical aesthetics market reached approximately RMB 400 billion, with over 30 million practitioners in the industry. Female consumers comprised more than 90% of the customer base, predominantly women aged 20–45, who accounted for over 80%. It is projected that by 2019, the market size of China’s domestic medical aesthetics industry will surpass RMB 1 trillion.

For China, the medical aesthetics industry has the following characteristics:

• Large market size

According to data from China's Fifth National Population Census, there are over 170 million urban women aged 15–64 in the country. Based on the current proportion of urban female consumers aged 20–45, who account for 64% of medical aesthetic and plastic surgery consumers, the total number of target female consumers for medical aesthetics and plastic surgery in China is estimated at 90 million.

• Rapid growth rate

Currently, medical aesthetics has become an integral part of everyday life for the general public. According to World Bank development reports, once a country’s per capita income exceeds USD 2,000—marking its entry into a moderately developed, well-off society—demand for the medical aesthetics industry increases by approximately 10%, with annual growth continuing at this rate. This trend has supported an annual growth rate of over 20% in China’s medical aesthetics industry.

• High industry profitability

Another characteristic of the current medical aesthetics industry is intense competition. Since over 75% of medical aesthetic institutions in China offer services with high economic returns, profits generated through technical expertise or marketing strategies account for approximately 30% to 50% of total profits, varying by the type and scale of the institution. Other surveys and estimates indicate that the gross profit margin of China’s medical aesthetics industry surpasses that of some popular sectors, earning it the reputation of a “fashionable profit-driven industry.”

Cloud Medical Aesthetics serves aesthetic seekers, physicians, and medical institutions by introducing a third-party review system to drive technological and managerial innovation.

The Cloud Medical Aesthetics platform is dedicated to three aspects:

1. Liberate physicians, enabling them to fully leverage their expertise to generate income;

2. Liberate medical institutions by relieving them of the direct responsibility for hiring and branding physicians, allowing them to focus solely on optimizing the end-user service experience;

3. Empower aesthetic seekers by enabling them to find suitable medical aesthetic physicians and accredited institutions that offer comprehensive service packages on the Cloud Medical Aesthetics platform.

Meanwhile, the Yunyimei platform has introduced a third-party evaluation system, allowing users who have purchased medical aesthetic products to review their service experiences, thereby providing references for other users when selecting physicians. The platform also helps established physicians recruit offline trainees, imparting their professional expertise to more individuals eager to learn these techniques. Yunyimei currently operates its own medical aesthetics outpatient clinic, Meirenji. All physicians on its platform are either from Grade A tertiary hospitals or are experienced practitioners from private hospitals. These physicians possess highly refined medical skills and frequently employ innovative technologies. For instance, traditional liposuction and body contouring procedures, which typically involve significant trauma and prolonged recovery, can now be performed using minimally invasive injections combined with specialized devices. Upon injection, the medication disrupts fat cell walls, allowing the contents to be naturally eliminated through metabolism, achieving a non-invasive and precise outcome, followed by skin tightening using specialized equipment. This approach is particularly effective for localized areas that are difficult to treat with conventional methods, such as dorsal hand fullness and axillary fullness.

Tan Bin, founder of Cloud Medical Aesthetics, is the founder of Beijing Meirenji Medical Aesthetic Clinic, the initiator of the Cloud Medical Aesthetics Operators Alliance Community, the initiator of the Cloud Medical Aesthetics Doctor Exchange Community, and a partner of the DT Doctor Club.

Discussing the reasons for starting a business in the medical aesthetics industry, Tan Bin told VCBeat that he had participated in the operation of medical aesthetic institutions backed by Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean investors. He witnessed the boldness of South Korean doctors and the rigor of Japanese doctors, but his greatest takeaway was recognizing the considerable strength of many Chinese doctors through comparison. Ultimately, he concluded that the golden age of the medical aesthetics industry lies in China. Therefore, at the end of 2013, he decided to take matters into his own hands to revolutionize the industry, aiming to provide beauty seekers with the best environment, physicians, and equipment. Together with two friends, he co-founded Beijing Meirenji Medical Aesthetics Clinic, personally experiencing the entire lengthy process from site selection, drafting, preliminary review, design, renovation, inspection, to licensing. He also leveraged the Luo Ji Si Wei knowledge community to launch an attempt at a cloud-based medical aesthetics platform. However, as the team delved deeper into the industry, they concluded that scaling up medical aesthetic services required transforming the existing business model, which was difficult to disrupt single-handedly. Consequently, the Cloud Medical Aesthetics team decided to adopt Uber’s sharing economy model, uniting more like-minded innovators to reconstruct the current monolithic and closed business model where institutions employ doctors to serve beauty seekers. In its early stages, Cloud Medical Aesthetics focused on effectively utilizing idle physician resources and institutional space under the sharing economy framework.

Currently, the development of the Yun Yimei website platform is nearing completion. Moving forward, the company will strengthen collaborations with experienced physicians in the medical aesthetics industry. Its ultimate goal is to become the “Dianping” of the medical aesthetics sector—providing robust platform services to Chinese consumers seeking aesthetic enhancements—and to expand its target market from 1.3 billion people in China to 6 billion globally.

Text | Zheng Qi, Deng Xueyuan