Orchid leads $70m Series E for China's SoYoung

RCIF’s involvement is seen by SoYoung as an endorsement by the “national team” – a reference to the vehicle’s two government-linked backers, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and China Investment Corporation (CIC), each of which committed $2 billion in seed funding in 2012. RCIF has also invested in Chinese start-ups such as online education business TutorGroup and steel trading platform Zhaogang.

“The funding from both of our old investors and the ‘national team’ reflects the huge potential of the aesthetic medical treatment market in China,” said Jin Xing, CEO and founder of SoYoung, in a statement published by Matrix. The new capital will be used to upgrade the company’s product offering, including the introduction of a one-stop “butler” service and supply chain improvements.

The investment comes eight months after SoYoung received a $60 million Series D led by the Apax Digital Fund, an Apax Partners-managed vehicle that focuses on minority and buyout investments in high-growth enterprise technology and internet companies globally. Matrix, CDH Investments, and Trustbridge Partners also took part in that round.

According to AVCJ Research, Matrix first backed SoYoung in 2014 and re-upped later the same year, committing $20 million in conjunction with Trustbridge. Tencent Holdings then invested $50 million in the company in 2016.

Founded in 2013, SoYoung has been dubbed the Facebook of plastic surgery in China. The company provides not only consultation services from over 6,000 clinics and 25,000 doctors, but also a network through which customers can interact with each other and even write dairies. Procedures are listed much like products on an e-commerce site, with prices for surgery on different body parts and details of the doctor who would perform it.

Having survived a round of consolidation in China’s aesthetic medical treatment industry which saw the number of players shrink from around 30 to half a dozen, SoYoung is now thought to be the market leader. It competes with the likes of Gengmei, which raised $50 million in Series D1 funding in July from photo editing and social networking app developer Meitu and Shenzhen-based DH Fund.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Technology
• Consumer
• China
• Growth capital
• TMT
• Orchid Asia Group Management
• Matrix Partners
• Bank of China
• Russia