Guahao.com, an online medical service provider, today announced over US$100 million of funding, led by Tencent. (Update: In a post published on Oct. 19th by David Feng, CTO of Dingxiangyuan, accuses that Guahao exaggerated the funding figure.)
Guahao’s Weiyi mobile apps, which connect patients and doctors,will be integrated into Tencent’s mobile apps, WeChat and Mobile QQ, according to the announcement.
In Chinese Guahao means scheduling a patient appointment, which is what the company started off doing in 2010. Since then Gaohao.com has added more than nearly one thousand hospitals in 23 regions of China.
Users are able to find all the hospitals and doctors on the site, schedule appointments, read medical tips as provided by doctors, or rate hospitals and doctors. The site has more than 37 million verified users and 120,000 registered doctors, according to the company.
Weiyi is a newly established service which expands existing offerings to mobile payments, medical record keeping, and further interactions between doctors and users. The app will be officially launched later this week.
Medicine and healthcare have become another vertical industry, like transportation and mobile commerce, where the Chinese internet giants have begun jousting for advantage. Alibaba announced a Future Hospital plan earlier this year that would add features similar to what Guahao has and will offer onto Alipay Wallet, the flagship mobile app of the Chinese e-commerce giant.
Before Guahao, Tencent invested US$70 million in Dingxiangyuan (DXY), a Chinese online medical service which is focused on medical and health information and hospital data.
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