160 Health Files IPO Prospectus: China's Leading Digital Healthcare Platform Targeting Nationwide Expansion

Jiuyi 160, a leading internet healthcare service platform in China, announced on March 19 that its online appointment registration volume increased by 150% in 2014 and is projected to grow by more than 200% this year. As of April 20, the Jiuyi 160 platform had served nearly 33 million users. Its Shenzhen branch has become the top platform for online appointment registrations among China’s four first-tier cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Meanwhile, Jiuyi 160 plans to comprehensively strengthen its nationwide presence this year by replicating the “Shenzhen model” in more cities across China.

The battle for appointment registration portals has reached a fever pitch. Previously, major developments included the Tencent consortium’s investment in Guahao.com and Baidu’s investment in Health Road, while Shenzhen Ningyuan Technology (Jiuyi 160) has also risen prominently. Interestingly, after investing in Health Road, Baidu announced a strategic partnership with Shenzhen Ningyuan Technology. Could it be that the rumored recent completion of Shenzhen Ningyuan Technology’s Series B financing is yet another masterstroke by Baidu?

VCBeat previously conducted a retrospective analysis of Chunyu Doctor. Now, we continue our review of the major players in the online appointment registration and consultation sector, examining how Jianyi 160 (Health 160) accumulated over 30 million users and how its business model evolved.

The Transformation Battle of 160 Health
Jiuyi 160 is affiliated with Shenzhen Ningyuan Technology. Founded in 2005, its core founding team members, Luo Ningzheng and Wang Ming, both came from hospital information departments. This background gave rise to its initial core business: medical information management systems and comprehensive solutions, exemplified by the launch of the “Blue Dragonfly” Hospital Infection Control Software. To date, it serves approximately 5,000 hospital clients, achieving a 40% coverage rate among secondary-and-above hospitals and covering 30% of tertiary hospitals across China.

However, at that time, its growth was relatively slow and could not compare with the Internet era. In 2005, Luo Ningzheng, Wang Ming, and others decided to gradually shift their focus to the Internet. They launched the first version of “Jiuyi 160” in 2006 and released the second version in 2008. Due to lack of experience and extremely low market awareness, their product failed to gain market acceptance.

In 2009, the Ministry of Health issued the “Opinions on Implementing Appointment-Based Diagnosis and Treatment Services in Public Hospitals.” The opinions required that, starting from November 2009, all public tertiary hospitals must provide real-name appointment registration services. Relevant officials from the Ministry of Health also explicitly stated that public hospitals may collaborate with third-party intermediaries to offer appointment registration services, provided that no service fees are charged to patients.

In 2010, the Ministry of Health issued the “Several Opinions on Improving Service Management in Public Hospitals and Facilitating Access to Medical Care for the Public,” which put forward more detailed requirements for the implementation of appointment-based diagnosis and treatment.

Seizing this prime opportunity, the team swiftly launched the third version of Health 160, centered on appointment registration. After competing with a series of rivals in Shenzhen, Health 160 secured a leading position and gained the favor of the Shenzhen Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, becoming its designated product. With its footing firmly established, Health 160 finally sounded the charge.

In-Depth Analysis of the Health 160 Product Line
Jiuyi 160’s product positioning is to serve as a bridge connecting hospitals, doctors, and patients. By providing free services to hospitals, Jiuyi 160 enables them to manage doctor profiles and appointment slots on its platform, while offering patients services such as consultations, reviews, and feedback, thereby attracting patient engagement. In this process, Jiuyi 160’s product ecosystem is divided into three segments: “Jiuyitong” for hospitals, “Doctor Assistant” for physicians, and the “Jiuyi 160” platform for individual patients.

Analysis of Jianyi160's Core Resources
The Jiuyi160 team believes that high-quality hospital and physician resources are fundamental to the development of internet healthcare. To leverage internet thinking to transform the traditional medical industry, it is essential to root operations in hospitals, optimize medical service processes based on hospital infrastructure, and diligently address the pain point of difficult access to medical care. This is because, even if physicians gain the freedom to practice independently in the future, they will still require a physical facility in which to practice.

Overall, compared with other models, 160 Health has the following characteristics:
1. High-quality core medical resources with nationwide coverage: The network has integrated over 700 public hospitals across 29 provinces in China, providing access to more than 300,000 physicians. Over 20,000 doctors are registered users of the “Doctor Assistant” tool, and more than 80% of these physicians are from tertiary Grade A hospitals.
2. Strong user stickiness driven by essential medical needs, with a proven city-level model: Centered on hospitals as the core scenario, it addresses users’ essential needs and demonstrates high stickiness, having transformed healthcare-seeking habits among Shenzhen residents; the Shenzhen model leads the country.
3. Comprehensive Service System Development: Establish a complete service system encompassing appointment scheduling, patient guidance, payment, post-consultation follow-up, consultations, and reviews.

Business Model Deduction and Profitability Analysis
Luo Ningzheng defines the business model of Health 160 as a multi-genetic service model of “software + Internet + healthcare,” connecting online resources with hospital resources.

According to VCBeat, Shenzhen Ningyuan Technology currently has multiple core revenue streams, including platform resource integration, advertising for high-quality private medical institutions, and agency services for overseas vaccines and health checkups.

Revenue from hospital collaborations is primarily derived from the “Blue Dragonfly” Hospital Infection Control Management System and internet-based operational services provided to hospitals; these two offerings constitute key channels for the company’s profitability and accumulation of hospital resources.

In terms of appointment-based consultations, paid advisory services have been introduced since last August, with revenue shared between the platform and physicians according to a predetermined ratio. The Jiuyi 160 platform offers physician consultation services through several models: one is free consultation; another involves designated physicians providing per-visit, weekly, or monthly packaged consultation services, with fees ranging from RMB 5 to RMB 50 per visit and from RMB 100 to over RMB 600 per month, averaging RMB 200–300. Physicians primarily provide these services during their spare time, setting their own service fees. Physicians receive 70% of the service fees, while the platform retains 30%.

Once a patient subscribes to a physician’s monthly online consultation package, that physician becomes the patient’s “personal doctor.” During the one-month subscription period, the patient may submit an unlimited number of consultations via text, images, video, or voice messages. Personal doctors providing paid consultations must respond within 24 hours; failure to do so is considered “no response,” and the system will automatically refund the fee to the patient. To safeguard patients’ rights and ensure the authority of the medical advice provided, the platform imposes three requirements on participating physicians: (1) they must upload their practicing license certificate; (2) they must be currently employed physicians practicing at accredited medical institutions within the same city; and (3) they must complete real-name verification.

In terms of overseas cooperation, Health 160 has launched a medical appointment service for Hong Kong. Currently available services include vaccinations, cardiac examinations, and health check-up packages, which mainland residents can book directly through the platform. Additionally, Health 160 plans to provide medical services in Europe and the United States to its more than 16 million real-name registered users.

The Jianyi 160 team stated that Jianyi 160 will accelerate its nationwide expansion, extending its service coverage from its flagship city, Shenzhen, to more than 50 cities across China. The company aims to provide services on a national scale and help more people access convenient medical care. In the future, Jianyi 160’s goal is to build China’s largest healthcare entry point and medical service platform.

Recently, Baidu and Health 160 have reached a strategic partnership. In addition to appointment registration traffic redirection, the collaboration mainly includes the following items:

1. The two collaborating parties will install in-hospital navigation systems within the hospital free of charge, indicating the locations of registration counters, cashier offices, information desks, and various clinical departments. Patients unfamiliar with the hospital’s internal layout and medical care processes can preview the campus environment online in advance, quickly locate their target departments, reduce inquiries and unnecessary detours, and tangibly improve and enhance the public’s experience in seeking medical care.

2. Baidu will provide Jiuyi160 with preliminary big data storage standards and methodologies, thereby safeguarding patient information security through technical measures. Meanwhile, leveraging Baidu’s big data and cloud computing capabilities, Jiuyi160 will enhance medical service efficiency and optimize the speed of online appointment scheduling, resulting in a smoother healthcare experience for patients.

Prior to partnering with Baidu, Health 160 had already established collaborations with Tencent and Alibaba, including providing appointment registration services for WeChat City Services and AliHealth. For Health 160, strategic cooperation with the BAT giants (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) has enabled it to leverage the massive traffic from these three major internet platforms to refine its channel entry points in the internet healthcare layout and better establish an online-to-offline closed loop.

The team stated that over the next three years, JiuYi 160 will focus on enhancing its services and will not prioritize profitability. However, it will continuously explore various revenue models, such as cross-border healthcare, software revenue, advertising services for premium specialist physicians, partnerships with insurance providers and pharmaceutical companies, and collaborations with telecommunications operators. Given the substantial size of the healthcare market and its numerous profit opportunities, diverse revenue streams can be developed, ultimately establishing an ecosystem for the internet healthcare industry.

Financing History
To date, Health 160 has undergone three rounds of financing.
In May 2012, it secured RMB 5 million in angel funding from Fission Capital.
In January 2014, the company secured a $5 million Series A financing round through joint investments from Shenzhen Qifu Capital, Beijing Aprui Investment, and other investors.
In April 2015, Health 160 completed a Series B financing round amounting to hundreds of millions of RMB (reportedly to be announced at the end of the month). The funds will primarily be used for market expansion over the next three years and for cultivating user habits, enabling the company to stand out among numerous healthcare apps through a multi-faceted revenue model integrating “software + internet + healthcare.”

Jiuyi160 Milestone Events
Since its inception, Shenzhen Ningyuan Technology (formerly known as “Jiuyi 160”) has developed a hospital infection management system and pivoted to provide internet-based medical appointment and consultation services. During this period, it has launched multiple healthcare products centered on its platform architecture, with the aim of seamlessly connecting hospitals, physicians, and patients.

Market Landscape of Comparable Products

WeDoctor:Guahao.com’s mobile brand has currently connected with more than 1,200 key hospitals across 30 provinces in China, accumulating over 25 million users who have utilized its appointment and medical consultation services. In October 2014, it secured $100 million in financing led by Tencent. Following this round of investment, Guahao.com integrated its “WeDoctor Platform” with WeChat and QQ, providing interface access for hospitals and physicians. Its primary focus is on connecting hospitals, doctors, and patients to facilitate effective information sharing among these three parties.

Health Road Medical Network:To subsidize the public-welfare appointment registration service with non-clinical value-added services, including patient appointment assistance, full-process medical accompaniment, proxy collection and mailing of laboratory/test reports, pre-consultation SMS reminders, rental of hospital visitation support staff, and maternal and infant care services.

Qu Hospital:Like many mobile internet companies, it adopted a “fully free” strategy to accumulate a critical mass of users before seeking new growth opportunities. There is likely significant room for future expansion in integrating third-party applications and O2O services.