WeDoctor Gets $500 Million Shot in Arm

Online health care provider WeDoctor, which is backed by technology giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., has completed a $500 million round of fundraising that values it at $5.5 billion.

The investment was led by insurer AIA Group Ltd. and Hong Kong property group NWS Holdings Ltd., the app operator We Doctor Holdings Ltd. said in a statement (link in Chinese) on Wednesday.

Its funding came on the heels of the floatation of larger rival Ping An Healthcare and Technology Co. Ltd., which raised $1.1 billion in Hong Kong last week. Widely known as Ping An Good Doctor, the company is a spinoff of China’s second-largest life insurer Ping An Insurance Group. It offers on-demand services such as connecting patients with doctors for consultations and diagnoses, allowing them to make outpatient appointments or get rehabilitation advice.

Both WeDoctor and Good Doctor have been scrambling for investors’ cash to expand in China, which has seen rising demand for quality health care services stemming from what some describe as a dearth of quality medical resources.

“China and the Asia-Pacific region are experiencing rapid growth in demand for quality health care that outstrips the development of resources and infrastructure,” AIA said in a separate statement, in which it announced the capital injection and a strategic partnership with WeDoctor.

This phenomenon creates “significant opportunities for innovative technology and health care funding solutions” to improve the quality and availability of care across the region, AIA said.

Under the partnership, the Hong Kong-listed insurer will become a major provider for WeDoctor’s life and medical insurance services.

The Tencent-backed WeDoctor app offers similar services to those of Good Doctor, and boasts over 110 million registered customers, a network of 2,700 hospitals, 220,000 doctors, and more than 15,000 pharmacies in 30 provincial-level areas across China.

Contact reporter Jason Tan (jasontan@caixin.com)