Every month we handpick 40 financing cases that reveal the hottest trends in the startup and tech industry in China. In August, we witnessed no doubt of ‘New Retail’’s mushrooming effect in China, as so many talents and hot money poured into industries with connections to ‘New Retail’, with various new forms of sales, such as unmanned shelves for instant foods. Though ‘New Retail’ continues to spread and shows a high frequency of investment in these industries, the total amount of financing funding in ‘New Retail’ is not as high as in health relevant industries this month.
Among the 40 cases we reported this month, United Imaging, Next code, and Missfresh secured the highest financing fundings. United Imaging secured the largest financing funding in the medical imaging industry, with USD 510 million for Series A financing round. It aims to provide cost-effective products and healthcare information solutions to benefit a wider range of society. While CextCODE from the health relevant industry secured USD 240 million, Missfresh continues expanding its fresh food e-commerce business depends with financial support gained from venture capitals.
Top 3 investment cases
Health is a routine and eternal topic of interest for people, and with economic development more and more people are spending extra time and money on health products, services, and behaviors such as dealing with their illness, improving their health condition, prolonging their lifetime, and so on.
Because of this new, elevated market demand, medical industries are flourishing accordingly. Companies in this field no longer simply remain in laboratories focusing on experiments; they are working with the venture market, as well as responding to consumers’ demands, to accelerate the commercialization of their products. As long as such companies can apply innovative methods to people’s real demands, it will remain easy to stay alive and thrive in China’s vast market.
Medical imaging company United Imaging received USD 510M for Series A
United Imaging is a medical imaging company dedicated to the development, manufacturing, and sales of a full range of large and high-end medical imaging equipment. It also provides a full range of healthcare solutions to relevant industries, such as diagnostic imaging equipment, radiotherapy equipment, medical service training, and healthcare IT through innovative products. United Imaging has submitted a total of more than 1,000 patent applications, of which more than half are invention patents. The company has independently researched and developed its first batch of 18 products and successfully released them into the market.
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Genomic information company NextCODE received USD 240M for Series B
NextCODE is a genomic information company that provides patients with gene sequencing services and uses sequence data to improve health for people around the world. Additionally, it stores a massive collection of genomic data from which it has built a standard network of genomic data, thus allowing global promotion of its services.
Founded in 2013 in Wuxi, NextCODE was acquired by WuXi AppTec in 2015. It currently has operational centers all over the world including in Shanghai, Cambridge, Massachusetts, etc. It has more than 300,000 DNA sequences stored in its genomic data collection.
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Fresh food e-commerce platform Missfresh received USD 230M for Series C+
Missfresh is a fresh food e-commerce platform that provides users with a wide array of fresh food, such as fruits and vegetables, seafood, meat, poultry, milk, snacks, and so on. It devised an innovative solution to the problem of keeping food fresh during delivery through the establishment of its own warehouses within and around communities. The startup built a cold chain logistics system across major cities to provide users with two-hour, door-to-door delivery service, which includes city sorting centers for large-scale regulation, as well as community distribution centers for door-to-door delivery. Meanwhile, most of its community distribution centers are located within 3 kilometers of any given user. In this way, it can shorten the distance of door-to-door delivery, as well as cut down on costs.
Top 3 watchable investors
Approximately 80 investors joined in the aforementioned investment cases. Eyeing the hottest sectors were major investors like Banyan Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and Tiantu Capital.
Banyan Capital
Banyan Capital manages four USD funds and three RMB funds, with around RMB 11 billion (USD 1.6 billion) under management. It mainly focuses on early stage and growth stage investments in TMT sector.
Investors of Banyan Capital include world-class sovereign wealth funds, university endowment funds, family foundations, pension funds, and fund of funds, as well as successful entrepreneurs, including founders and management personel of Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, JD, Xiaomi, Focus Media and VIPShop. They provide Banyan Capital with valuable industry resources, entrepreneurial experience, and global perspectives.
Banyan Capital invested frequently this month, as it led Qianbaocard’s Series B financing round with USD 150 million.
Qiming Venture Partners
Qiming has backed over 210 young, fast-growing and innovative companies across China in the internet and consumer, healthcare, information technology, and clean technology sectors. Over 30 of them are already listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, HKEx, Gretai Securities Market, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange or achieved exit through M&A. Such as Xiaomi, Dianping, iTutorGroup, Mogujie, Meitu, Bilibili, Tigermed, and so on.
Qiming Venture Partners invested USD 18M in the Series B financing round of medical image diagnosis company Infervision.
Tiantu Capital
Founded in 2012, Tiantu Capital focuses on investing consumption brands, as well as enterprises providing home products and services. Generally, it invests in startups before Series A round.
Companies Tiantu Capital has invested in cover several consumption scenes, including medical and health, education, financial services, life services, food and beverage, clothing and so on.
Tiantu Capital supported fresh food B2C e-commerce platform Shixing Shengxian with USD 46M to follow the ‘New Retail’ trend.
Top Trend
Throughout this month, the health and medical industry lead investment trends in China.
Health and medical industries are integrating with commercial support to provide a number of consumers with available innovative products and services. For example, medical imaging technology can be used to help patients deal with illness and depend on big data and internet technologies, as well as help people keep healthy. Moreover, with massive capital and data pouring into this industry, companies that started early will accrue cumulative competitive advantage, as it is a positive loop.
Meanwhile, genomic information flourishes in the medical industry. It was hard to promote in the past due to the high cost for normal consumers, while with the development of infrastructure in internet and big data, the price of sequencing services has been reduced to under USD 1000. It means most of us can go for a sequencing service for our unique genomic information, as well as our offspring, we can overcome our genomic defect, as well as detect illness beforehand.
Thus we can enjoy a better and longer life. That’s why health and medical industries continue to flourish, and why we can expect more and more funding, innovation, and resources to enter the playing field.
List of companies that attracted investments in September
(Top photo from 699pic.com)
