Easyhin Technology Files IPO Prospectus: SoftBank China's First Internet Healthcare Investment

Early this year, SoftBank China extended its investment reach into the mobile healthcare sector for the first time. The first company it selected was Shenzhen Yixin Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yixin Technology”), with an angel-round investment amount of RMB 10 million. It is rare for investors to be so generous at the angel-round stage in the mobile healthcare field.

Yixin Technology is a mobile health company specializing in the field of women’s and children’s health. Founded on February 14, 2014, its flagship product is the “Mami Zhidao” app, dedicated to maternal and child wellness. The company offers services such as online consultations with private physicians from top-tier (Grade A tertiary) hospitals in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen; education on prenatal and pediatric care; and personalized baby growth tracking. Its core user base consists of pregnant women and mothers aged 19 to 35.

Yixin Technology launched a WeChat service platform called “Golden 1,000 Days” in October 2014, focusing on serving users with urgent needs during pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing, and has built a strong reputation among a large number of expectant mothers and new fathers.

Data provided by Yixin Technology shows that the company receives a user consultation inquiry every 2.4 minutes, while obstetricians and pediatricians from Grade A tertiary hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen post more than 5,000 responses daily on the “Golden 1,000 Days” platform. Building on this foundation, Yixin launched the “Mommy Knows” app in early January, and the “Golden 1,000 Days” WeChat service account was renamed “Mommy Knows – Doctor Consultation Edition” on the same day. Currently, Yixin Technology’s total user base across all platforms has exceeded 1 million.

In May, Yixin Technology announced the completion of its $10 million Series A financing round, led by Morningside Venture Capital and participated in by SoftBank China.

Huang Lu, an investor at Morningside Venture Capital, believes that Yixin’s strategy is very clear and its team demonstrates strong execution capabilities. “Morningside has invested in well-known internet companies such as Xiaomi and Sohu, and has made in-depth investments in mobile healthcare, particularly through collaborations with top-tier hospitals worldwide. In the future, we will also introduce high-quality overseas medical resources to Yixin.”

“During the angel round, our primary focus was on the team. With the launch of the ‘Mami Zhidao’ app in January, which accumulated millions of users within just a few months, our confidence in Yixin has grown even stronger, which is why we decided to co-invest in this round,” said Wu Kai, Investment Director at SoftBank China.

Liang Liang, founder of Yixin Technology, told VCBeat: “Our vision is to make healthcare more compassionate while improving its efficiency and reducing costs. Achieving this vision will undoubtedly require a long-term effort, which is why we chose SoftBank and Morningside Venture Capital as our investors. They are not impetuous; they are willing to give Yixin more time to grow without pursuing short-term profitability, and they have not imposed any performance metrics on us.”

In fact, SoftBank China had been in contact with Yixin Technology as early as the latter’s inception, but at that time, SoftBank China only expressed a willingness to maintain close communication and did not signal any intention to invest. The turning point came after Yixin Technology adjusted its corporate strategy.

Shifting from a broad, comprehensive model to the women’s and children’s health sector

Initially, Liang Liang planned to build a comprehensive healthcare platform integrating functions such as appointment scheduling, payment processing, access to test reports, smart hospital solutions, doctor-patient communication, a physician community, and a patient community. “We had already started working on some of these business areas. For instance, in the smart hospital sector, we had partnered with several Grade 3A hospitals. However, we later realized that spreading our resources so thinly was not the right strategy for a startup. This was the most important lesson we learned at that time.”

After reflecting on the painful lessons, Liang Liang concluded that he needed to stay focused and concentrate on a specific niche segment.

Liang Liang recalled that the founding team of Yixin Technology consisted primarily of individuals born in the 1970s and 1980s, most of whom had already established their careers and families. They sought to integrate their professional endeavors with family life, particularly addressing their health needs. “Family members, especially wives and children, are the group our team understands most thoroughly.” Meanwhile, the team conducted research on users of online appointment registration and teleconsultation services, finding that the largest user segments were in pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology. Consequently, Yixin Technology chose to provide medical and healthcare services for women and children, focusing on a specialized niche within the healthcare market.

According to survey data from VCBeat’s Internet Healthcare Research Institute, “Currently, it is widely believed that the medical specialties most suitable for online lightweight consultations are obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dermatology and venereology, male urology, and plastic and cosmetic surgery.” This indicates that online lightweight consultation services in obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics are highly popular.

Liang Liang believes that the fields of pediatrics and maternal and child health rarely involve major surgeries or complex, critical, and refractory cases; online consultations can resolve at least 30–40% of these issues. In this regard, Yixin Technology has also spoken with many pediatricians and obstetrician-gynecologists, who indicated that they see a large number of patients daily, many of whom suffer from common conditions that do not require injections or medication. Regarding the user base (service recipients), young parents are early adopters of new products, demonstrating strong acceptance and adaptability. Furthermore, as children are the center of family attention, extending related service offerings within the maternal and child health sector holds considerable market potential. Additionally, the compensation, income, and level of professional recognition for physicians specializing in maternal and child health are currently less than optimistic, leaving substantial room for improvement. The 2015 "White Paper on the Practice Status of Chinese Physicians" noted that pediatricians and hematologists within internal medicine have relatively low incomes, with pediatricians being particularly underpaid.

For Yixin Technology, strategic adjustment was a hurdle. Fortunately, they successfully overcame it.

“Not a single member of our team left; instead, we have become more united,” Liang Liang told VCBeat. This adjustment involved the reallocation of resources, including human and material assets, as Yixin had partnered on several smart hospital projects. Subsequently, the company began gradually redirecting its newly hired personnel and existing technical workforce toward new product directions.

Yixin’s early team was highly experienced and trustworthy, while the latent demand in the women’s and children’s health sector further expanded the startup’s potential. Specialties such as ophthalmology and otolaryngology, dermatology, and surgery are expected to become more finely segmented and deeply specialized. In terms of product performance, the new version, launched in March, immediately attracted 600,000 users, with the daily volume of physician Q&A interactions reaching approximately 2,000.

Mommy Knows: Bringing Warmth to Healthcare

Liang Liang formerly served as the Operations Director for Aramark’s Healthcare Division in China. As the world’s largest provider of hospital outsourcing services, Aramark has served at least 150 renowned hospitals in China. During a six-month stay at Duke University in the United States in 2013, Liang gained profound insights into the disparities between Chinese and American healthcare systems in areas such as patient experience, service workflows, and doctor-patient relationships. Shortly after returning to China, he left behind the prestigious work environment and lucrative compensation of a multinational corporation to co-found Yixin Technology with Zhang Yi, who was then working at Tencent. Their goal was to leverage mobile internet technologies to improve the medical consultation experience in China and foster greater trust between doctors and patients—a mission that inspired the company’s name, “Yixin” (literally meaning “Medical Trust”).

“I believe this product will change many people’s lives and transform the way they access medical care, because such changes are truly happening around me.”

Liang Liang’s father, born in the 1950s and once a loyal user of non-smartphones, has now become a die-hard fan of smartphones. This transformation occurred because Mamy Knows helped resolve some of the challenges he faced when taking his grandson to see a doctor.

Liang Liang’s child is just two months shy of turning four. Having inherited his father’s allergic rhinitis, the child frequently suffers from coughing and a runny nose, which have become the primary reasons for repeated hospital visits. Since starting kindergarten at age three, these visits have become even more frequent. Each time the child’s rhinitis flares up, the grandfather has to wake up before 6:00 a.m. to queue at Shenzhen Children’s Hospital for registration. After securing an appointment number, he returns home to rest for a while. Then, around 9:00 a.m., when it is nearly their turn, he and the grandmother bring the child back to the hospital to wait. This back-and-forth process is exceedingly burdensome. However, with the launch of Mami Zhidao (Mommy Knows), such challenges faced by families like Liang Liang’s have been readily resolved.

Liang Liang’s child has an atopic constitution, and in some cases, the child’s rhinitis is allergy-induced. As the child’s personal physician, Dr. Zhai Yingying from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University patiently assesses the child’s overall condition. Based on her evaluation, she advises the grandfather whether the child needs to undergo laboratory testing at a hospital or if the symptoms are merely mild allergic reactions that do not require a hospital visit.

The original three-minute, in-person consultation has evolved into an online service. “Now, Dr. Zhai and my father communicate solely through photos; they have yet to meet in person. Nevertheless, the level of trust between them has even surpassed that typically established with a doctor seen in person.” In addition to consulting with physicians online, Liang Liang’s father also likes every article written by Dr. Zhai Yingying.

“The changes in my father have given Liang Liang great confidence. ‘We place greater emphasis on professionalism and service quality, which sets us apart from other products.’”

It is not easy to become a physician on the Yixin Technology platform.

“Yixin Technology has always adhered to the practice of selecting doctors exclusively through offline channels and has not yet rolled out its services nationwide. Only obstetricians/gynecologists and pediatricians from Grade 3A hospitals in seven core cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Changsha, Chengdu, and Chongqing—are eligible to become Yixin Technology’s partner physicians. ‘Moreover, we conduct face-to-face interviews with every doctor, ensuring that their professional philosophy, commitments, service standards, and future plans are clearly articulated,’ said Liang Liang.”

“Now, Yixin is also experimenting with new approaches to evaluate physicians, establishing standards and processes for internet-based services, as well as contracting and interview procedures, while providing reviews and incentives for physicians’ services. ‘Subjective user feedback serves as one reference point, reflecting whether physicians devote sufficient time to consultations. Meanwhile, the quality of medical responses, adherence to clinical pathways, and other professional criteria are evaluated and screened by a medical editorial board composed of experienced practitioners,’ Liang Liang told VCBeat.”

Furthermore, the “Ask a Doctor” module of Mommy Knows features an extremely granular departmental classification. It includes specialized departments such as Pediatric Dentistry, Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery, and Plastic Surgery, which are not always available on other similar platforms. Moreover, Yixin Technology boasts a robust team dedicated to original content creation. Health-related information focused on women and children is reviewed and edited by a Medical Committee before being published on public platforms.

Does Mommy know how to use it?

Mommy Knows currently offers three main features: Online Consultation, Authoritative Health Education, and Baby Profile.

Regarding the online consultation feature, Mami Zhidao has assembled star physicians from top-tier (Grade A tertiary) hospitals in first-tier cities. The platform offers a wide range of specialties, including Pediatric Internal Medicine, Pediatric Surgery, Child Health Care, Pediatric ENT/Ophthalmology/Stomatology/Dermatology/Nutrition, as well as Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Prenatal Nutrition. Specialist doctors are available online for each department.

Authoritative health education is delivered through the “Hot Questions” system, jointly developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Capital Institute of Pediatrics, and MedTrust Medical Group, which precisely recommends frequently consulted responses to users. Mommy Knows aggregates the most authoritative and professional knowledge on pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing, featuring exclusive original articles contributed by pediatricians, obstetricians, and online parenting experts. It has established China’s first “Original Article Repository for Obstetric and Pediatric Physicians,” with all popular science articles published only after review and approval by the MedTrust medical team.

The Baby Profile feature simply collects information about the mother or baby. Data entered by users will be synced in real time to the doctor’s end, facilitating more accurate preliminary clinical assessments.

The post-login interface appears as follows. The app is divided into three sections: Hot Topics, News, and Me.

In the "Hot Questions" section, the most recently onboarded doctors are displayed at the top. Below the recommended doctors, users can choose to initiate a quick consultation, select a specific doctor for consultation, or browse questions posted by other mothers and their corresponding doctors' responses based on question categories. When submitting a question, users must select the appropriate medical department and identify the primary symptom from options 1–4. A detailed description of the issue is required. If possible, it is highly recommended to upload images showing the affected area, along with medical reports, medication records, and other relevant clinical information.

Departments include Obstetrics, Pediatric Internal Medicine, Child Health Care, Pediatric Surgery, Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology and Ophthalmology, Pediatric Dentistry, and Pediatric Dermatology, among others; these departments are further subdivided. The information section is dedicated to sharing extensive parenting knowledge.