Yu Yifei, Executive Director of Tencent Investment: "It's Time to Connect Healthcare"

As one of the three giants of BAT, Tencent is best known for its communication tools and generates the most revenue from gaming. So, which business holds the greatest promise and can best support Tencent’s future development? Beyond internet finance, it may well be internet healthcare, a sector garnering increasing social attention.

In recent years, Tencent has made significant strides in the internet healthcare sector. This time, Tencent, Pfizer, Ping An Insurance, and Legend Capital have jointly launched the “Medical Partnership Innovation Collaboration Competition” under the theme “Growing Together in Healthcare, Winning Through Collaboration.” This initiative signals that Tencent’s strategic deployment in healthcare has entered a new phase: actively driving the development of the industry ecosystem, fostering more innovative enterprises that address critical pain points in China’s healthcare system, and genuinely advancing the progress of healthcare in China.

For this competition, Tencent, Pfizer, Ping An Insurance, and Legend Capital will join forces with China’s top healthcare innovators and entrepreneurs to foster win-win collaboration, aiming to build the premier ecosystem for healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship in China. On this occasion, VCBeat interviewed Mu Yifei, Executive Director of Tencent Investment, to gain insights into his perspectives on medical innovation and how Tencent leverages its strategic resources to empower entrepreneurs’ growth.

Investment Strategy: Respect the Industry and Its Principles, Adhere to Connector Positioning

The other three organizers of this Medical Partner Innovative Collaboration Proposal Competition, held in partnership with Tencent, are leading enterprises in their respective industries, such as Ping An, a domestic financial giant; Legend Capital, a benchmark in venture capital; and Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. As the sole internet company among the four partners, what expectations does Tencent have for this collaboration?

Mu Yifei stated that the four parties have accumulated substantial expertise in their respective fields. This competition has provided them with a valuable opportunity for direct engagement and close interaction, serving as an excellent platform for learning and exchange. Furthermore, through this collaboration, the four parties can leverage their complementary advantageous resources to provide optimal support to entrepreneurs, enabling them to truly thrive on the joint platform.

Mu Yifei acknowledged that while China’s healthcare system is relatively comprehensive in its various components, many aspects remain imperfect, with insufficient coordination among them. In the healthcare sector, Tencent will continue to adhere to its positioning as a “connector,” striving to link people, medical services, devices, and medical and health information via the internet. By acting as a “lubricant” across all segments, Tencent aims to enable the entire healthcare system to operate more efficiently.

Mu Yifei particularly emphasized that the healthcare sector is highly specialized and not Tencent’s area of expertise. Tencent will adhere to its consistent principle of respecting the industry and its inherent dynamics, maintaining a learning attitude toward the industry, experts, and entrepreneurs, thereby allowing experts and entrepreneurs to fully leverage their professionalism. What Tencent aims to focus on is leveraging its advantageous resources to help entrepreneurs accelerate their development.

Regarding how to select specific entrepreneurial directions, would Tencent welcome a relatively concentrated emergence of startups in certain niche sectors? Mu Yifei explicitly stated that entrepreneurs are the smartest and most professional group; Tencent will not predefine entrepreneurial directions but instead maintain full openness, respecting the choices made by the entrepreneurs themselves.

Strategic Focus: Pharmaceuticals and Insurance May Take Center Stage

However, a brief review of Tencent’s investment layout in the internet healthcare sector may offer insights into its next key investment focus.

Tencent’s four most significant investments in the internet healthcare sector—Dingxiangyuan, Guahaowang, Zhuojian, and Medlinker—have essentially established an internet healthcare matrix that encompasses three key stakeholders (physicians, patients, and hospitals), spans both consumer-facing (C-end) and business-facing (B-end) markets, and covers physician communities, doctor-patient communication, hospital informatization, and online-offline integration.

Integrating and connecting the core elements—such as talent, information, services, and payments—embedded within these four investments will be a key priority for Tencent’s healthcare business in the next phase.

Among all the “connections,” the most valuable one—the mobile entry point where Tencent holds a monopoly—has already begun integrating into Tencent’s internet healthcare ecosystem. By opening the mobile version of Tencent’s app and navigating to the Health section under the Updates tab, users will find the “Book a Top Doctor” feature at the bottom of the page, which is powered by WeDoctor, a company invested in by Tencent.

Will WeChat open a top-level entry point for medical and healthcare services at some point in the future? Currently, it can be observed that relevant links have already appeared at the top of the City Services page under the Wallet entry. For instance, cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Chongqing offer two features: an appointment registration platform and access to public hospitals. The appointment registration function is integrated with platforms such as Jiuyi 160, Yishi Wuyou, and Yishitong, while the public hospital feature provides access to diagnosis and treatment records, appointment registration, electronic reports, and medical cards across multiple hospitals. In Beijing, only the Beijing Cancer Hospital is displayed, offering WeChat-based appointment registration and electronic report services.

Judging from WeChat’s characteristic caution, it is likely that the primary entry point for healthcare services will only be opened once Tencent’s integration of internet healthcare can provide users with a relatively satisfactory experience.

It is also worth noting that Tencent has yet to fully engage two other key stakeholders: pharmaceuticals and insurance. Both represent massive markets, with insurance in particular poised to potentially become the operational hub of the entire healthcare system in the future, playing a critically important role in connecting and integrating the other four major participants in the healthcare ecosystem.

Tencent’s future investment direction may focus on the pharmaceutical and insurance sectors, echoing the roles of the competition’s other two organizers, Pfizer and Ping An Insurance.

Contribute Premium Resources to Fully Support Entrepreneurs

To support entrepreneurs in accelerating their growth, Tencent will leverage its extensive resources—including investment and financing, incubation, and traffic—to provide comprehensive assistance to entrepreneurs.

In terms of investment and financing, although Tencent has not disclosed how much it intends to invest in the companies participating in this competition, given its substantial financial resources, we only need to be concerned about whether high-quality startups will emerge, rather than worrying about whether Tencent has sufficient cash.

In terms of incubation, Tencent has previously launched mass innovation spaces across China and a dedicated incubation program known as the “Double Hundred Plan.” Tencent has established 25 offline mass innovation spaces nationwide, with a planned total area exceeding 500,000 square meters. The “Double Hundred Plan” refers to Tencent’s initiative to invest traffic resources valued at RMB 10 billion over three years, aiming to support 100 startups in achieving market valuations of over RMB 100 million each.

In connection with this event, Tencent has specifically announced that it will provide 3–6 months of rent-free office space to support the development of startup enterprises.

In terms of traffic, Tencent will also allocate corresponding resources to support participating companies. Given Tencent’s leading position in communication, social networking, and app distribution, traffic support is perhaps the most exciting resource for participating companies.

Particularly noteworthy is that, in the recently viral WeChat Open Class, Allen Zhang revealed that WeChat Official Accounts have become the preferred platform for many entrepreneurs. The upcoming “App Accounts” feature to be launched by WeChat may represent a new wave of entrepreneurial opportunities worthy of special attention from participating companies.

 

Links to the Expert Interview Series – Click to Read

Pfizer China President Wu Xiaobin: Let’s Do Something Big Together

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