Chuan Taiyi Secures Tens of Millions in USD Series A Funding, Files for IPO

VCBeat has received exclusive news that on the day welcoming the 2016 New Year, the medical O2O startup Chuan Taiyi announced further good news. In an open letter to internal employees, Yuan Guangbo explicitly confirmed that the Series A funding had been secured, with the specific investors and amount to be disclosed later. The following is the content of the email:

Dear VCBeat Community, Happy New Year!

Today is the last day of 2015, a year that witnessed many significant events, including the birth of our shared name, “Chuan Taiyi.” First and foremost, I would like to thank everyone for joining the Chuan Taiyi team over the past year and for contributing to our collective vision. I also wish you all a joyful work experience, happy personal growth, and abundant rewards at Chuan Taiyi in the upcoming year of 2016!
Looking back to this day one year ago, the difference is truly night and day. On December 31, 2014, I formally resigned from Pfizer, determined to go all-in on founding Chuan Taiyi. At that time, we had not yet secured angel investment from Wang Xiao. New Year’s Day 2015 was spent in a mix of eagerness and apprehension; I could not tell my family that, for the sake of this venture, I had staked everything.
On New Year’s Day 2016, one year later, I hereby announce that Chuan Taiyi has successfully completed a Series A financing round in the tens of millions of US dollars. At the request of the investors, the specific participating institutions and the exact amount will be disclosed one month from now.
As many of you have likely heard, cash flow is the litmus test in this “capital winter.” Toward the end of the year, a large number of O2O companies announced bankruptcy due to broken cash flows, and office rents in Beijing fell accordingly. The mobile health sector, where we operate, has similarly cooled down from its investment hotspot status during 2013–2014. The investment community now generally believes that mobile health lacks viable profit models and fails to tap into the core value of the healthcare industry, leading to waning interest in this direction. Nevertheless, Chuan Taiyi has carved out a unique path. Our “Internet + Healthcare + Insurance” model, our strategic planning serving both doctors and patients, our operational capacity to serve over 200 users on average per day, and our rapid user acquisition rate of thousands per day have impressed investors. On the first day of the new year, the dedication of all Chuan Taiyi team members over the past year has propelled us to new heights, enabling us to surge upward against the trend. Chuan Taiyi’s 2016 is destined to be brilliant and colorful!
Please join me in taking a quick look back at 2015 through this email. Many scenes from the past year are worth remembering and reflecting upon. I believe each of you has your own “annual snapshot.” By drawing lessons and distilling wisdom from our past experiences, we can move forward faster and better in the days to come.

——Start-up
In early January 2015, I completed the resignation procedures from my former employer, taking the first formal step toward launching Chuan Taiyi. Our initial office was a borrowed 15-square-meter space near Sanyuanqiao Bridge. On my first day there, I sat alone in the office, enthusiastically planning for the future. On a sheet of paper, I wrote down Chuan Taiyi’s goal for 2015: to partner with 500 physicians to provide Chuan Taiyi services. Later, we achieved a monthly onboarding rate of 500 new physicians. By the second half of the year, the number of physicians available for appointment on our platform exceeded 5,000, with more than 20,000 daily appointment slots offered by renowned experts online. Over the past year, we have expanded Chuan Taiyi’s blueprint several fold, accomplishing countless feats that I could never have imagined while sitting alone in that office last January. Indeed, we have achieved many things that were once beyond our wildest dreams!
This is the annual achievement I would like to review with you first—we can create accomplishments that surpass our imagination.
Recall the situation in January 2015: the company had only one full-time employee, ten part-timers, and remaining funds of approximately RMB 100,000. There was no revenue, no R&D staff, no customers, and no partners… Yet here we are in January 2016, sitting on nearly RMB 100 million in investment, with over 1 million registered users, dozens of corporate partners, more than 100 employees, and business operations covering Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai… In 2016, Chuan Taiyi is bound to achieve even greater accomplishments.
But what if you simply cannot figure out what to do? Without a clear vision, grinding away blindly until things finally turn around may make for a dramatically compelling narrative in stories, but it is far from enjoyable in reality. Therefore, we will introduce a “CEO Q&A Session” in 2016. Every Friday at 4:00 PM, I will be available in the third-floor conference room, and employees from any department are welcome to attend voluntarily and ask any questions. We hope these discussions will help everyone gain a clearer understanding of the company’s vision, what is happening within the organization, and the ultimate purpose behind our efforts.

——Crisis
In May 2015, shortly after the launch of version 1.0 of Chuan Taiyi, we quickly secured a term sheet for RMB 10 million in Pre-A financing. With the term sheet in hand, we embarked on ambitious planning and envisioning for the future, and even began expanding operations before the funds were actually disbursed. However, after more than a month of expenditures, we encountered the stock market crash, with panic spreading across the secondary market. These factors directly caused the originally planned Pre-A investment to fall through. By the end of July, the company’s cash flow was effectively exhausted. In this emergency, I urgently borrowed a sum of money from existing shareholders to tide us over during the most difficult period.
We must always bear such lessons in mind, learning and growing from them.
Since August, we have implemented stricter regulations on the budget system;
At the same time, we are exploring more rational performance evaluation methods. As a pioneering new business venture with an innovative organizational structure, Chuan Taiyi has no off-the-shelf assessment models to adopt; we must chart our own course. We aim to reward top performers, phase out underperformers, and ensure that our performance incentives remain consistently aligned with the company’s strategic direction. We have piloted three rounds of OKR (Objectives and Key Results) assessments and plan to implement them comprehensively in 2016. Performance evaluations will soon be formally launched for every position.
Performance assessments are not only aimed at individuals but also serve as a critical benchmark for the company’s expansion pace. Looking back, the mid-2015 expansion resembles more of a “Great Leap Forward,” lacking continuous calibration during the process to examine the discrepancies between benefits, risks, and expectations. In 2016, the scale of capital investment and personnel expansion will inevitably be several times greater than in 2015. We will no longer entrust matters of vital importance to mere luck. Phased milestones will become prerequisites for increased investment, ensuring steady progress toward achieving Chuan Taiyi’s brilliance in 2016.

— Enhancement
A company of nearly 100 employees was rapidly built from the ground up. Amidst this swift growth, we must clearly recognize our managerial shortcomings, let alone the lack of deeper cultural foundations and team spirit that require time to cultivate.
Since September 2015, we have launched the initiative to “Enhance Management Standards.” Starting in October, we conducted three pilot rounds of OKR assessments for middle management in our offline departments, continuously refining a unique performance evaluation system tailored to Chuan Taiyi’s proprietary model. From November onward, we began comprehensively designing performance appraisal frameworks for all positions across the company, with implementation scheduled for the first quarter of 2016.
Good news: There will be bonuses in 2016!
A major transformation in 2016 will be the comprehensive implementation of performance evaluations, rewarding top performers and eliminating underperformers. This is the only way for any team to sustain its vitality and survive in a competitive environment. At this juncture, our team has reached a new level, and every member must have a correct understanding of the situation and a sense of urgency. Including myself, we should reflect on our actions multiple times a day, constantly urging ourselves to improve, improve, and improve further. Only in this way can Chuan Taiyi stand out in commercial competition.
As we stand together on the first day of 2016, how are you feeling? Reflecting on all the challenges we overcame in 2015 and looking ahead to 2016, what new heights can Chuan Taiyi reach? Unleash your imagination—nothing is impossible.
Once again, we wish you all great success and meaningful achievements on the Chuan Taiyi platform in the new year.
The possibilities for summoning an imperial physician are nearly infinite, and so are you, the one who summons them. I believe we are most qualified to wish each other: May all your wishes come true!

Yuan Guangbo

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