Hillhouse, Goldman lead $394m round for China healthcare portal
Guahao.com, a Chinese healthcare information portal, has completed a Series B round of funding worth $394 million led by Hillhouse Capital and Goldman Sachs.
Fosun Group, Tencent Holdings and China Development Bank Capital also participated in the round. In October, Tencent led a $100 million investment in the company.
Guahao has been rebranded under a new umbrella name of WeDoctor Group, which operates website Guahao.com, mobile platform We Doctor, and healthcare insurance unit Accountable Care Organization.
Founded in 2010, Hangzhou-based Guahao covers over 1,600 hospitals in 25 Chinese provinces and about 190,000 doctors have used the platform to make patient appointments - based on location, medical specialties and other criteria - with over 100 million online registered users.
Mobile users of Tencent's instant-messaging online platforms WeChat and QQ are able to access Guahao's We Doctor app. The app helps users find hospitals and doctors, schedule appointments, make online payments and obtain medical reports.
Guahao plans to use new capital to build a medical treatment grading system, which doctors can use to assess the stage of sickness and decide on treatment. The company will invest an additional $150 million - including $94 million from current round and $56 million from its balance sheet - to build five regional surgical operation centers with local medical institutions, it said in a statement posted on its WeChat account.
Online healthcare services are popular among VC and strategic investors. A few weeks ago, Chinese search engine Baidu led a $40 million Series B round for Quyiyuan.com, a Shanghai-based medical consultation and service-booking mobile app. At the same time, Tencent and Yunfeng Capital committed $40 million in a Series B round of funding to Medlinker, a Chinese social-networking platform for doctors.
Tencent previously invested $70 million in Chinese healthcare professionals networking site dxy.com, while Yunfeng teamed up with Shenzhen Cowin Capital and New Horizon Capital to invest RMB200 million ($32 million) in mobile healthcare app developer Huakang Mobile Healthcare.
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