Ping An's O2O Healthcare Service Arm Raises Half A Billion USD

Chinese O2O healthcare services startup, Ping An Health Cloud Co. Ltd., announced a hefty round of Series A funding on Friday.

The Ping An Insurance subsidiary raised $500 million USD, putting the company at a valuation of around $3 billion USD. The company did not disclose its investors, though it said that funds were sourced from “well-known overseas private equity funds and state-owned financial enterprises.”

“The development of China’s online healthcare industry is still in its early stages,” said Tao Wang, the Chairman of Ping An Health Cloud, in an article by NetEase Finance (link in Chinese). “This round of funding will help Ping An Doctor (平安好医生) open the era of ‘internet healthcare 2.0′.”

Ping An Doctor is Ping An Health Cloud’s mobile platform for healthcare-related services and products. Users can make doctor appointments through the app, pay for private online consulting, purchase medicine, find nearby pharmacies and hospitals, track how many steps they’ve taken, post pictures of their gym workouts, and more.

According to Ping An Insurance’s annual financial report for 2015, Ping An Doctor has partnered with 40,000 external doctors and has about 30 million users. The app is similar to that of its biggest competitor, Tencent-backed WeDoctor (formerly Guahao). Last September, WeDoctor announced a $394 million USD round of Series C funding, following a $100 million USD round of funding from Tencent in 2014.

Launched in June 2015, Ping An Doctor is just one piece of Ping An Insurance’s ‘internet finance’ ecosystem, which includes Ping An Haoche (Ping An Good Car, our translation), an automobile e-commerce services platform, and Ping An Haofang (Ping An Good House, our translation), a platform for crowdfunding, trading, renting, and obtaining loans for real estate property.

These internet finance businesses are a way to boost Ping An Insurance’s customer base and encourage customer migration across the company’s various businesses, such as insurance, banking, and asset management. Ping An Insurance also has a venture capital arm called Ping An Ventures, whose investments include Chinese e-commerce app Mogujie in 2015 and U.S biotech startup 20/20 GeneSystems in January.

A spokesperson from Ping An Health Cloud did not respond immediately for a comment.

Source: technode