Tencent-Backed WeDoctor Still Planning Huge IPO By February

Chinese healthcare technology group WeDoctor is still planning a massive IPO in Hong Kong in the coming months, despite the recent departure of its CFO, John Cai.

Sources told Bloomberg that WeDoctor aims to file an IPO prospectus around the Lunar New Year in February, with hopes to raise $500 million to $1 billion. Cai, who was brought on in February to steer the IPO, has been offered an advisory role with WeDoctor’s backer, Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent Holdings. WeDoctor is also in the process of raising $350 million ahead of the IPO.

Bloomberg added that WeDoctor’s listing comes amid a regulatory crackdown on Internet companies by Chinese regulators. Because of this, WeDoctor will be split into two entities, one of which will IPO while the other remains privately held.

The unit to IPO will consist of WeDoctor’s online pharmaceutical sales and healthcare consultation businesses, which have been valued at more than $6 billion pre-money in the latest funding round. The second unit, which will contain its personal medical data business, will remain private to comply with Chinese regulatory laws, according to Bloomberg.

The deal will be managed by Citigroup, along with J.P. Morgan Chase and CMB International, and had been expected to take place before the end of the year. WeDoctor was valued at around $5.5 billion in a 2018 funding round, Bloomberg said.

Online healthcare consultations have become a booming business since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In November, Teladoc Health used a trio of descriptives to characterize the state of its business, which saw a third quarter bursting with triple-digit percentage gains in multiple areas. The company said it’s “exceeding expectations,” “building on momentum” and delivering “consistent growth” — all at once.

If that wasn’t enough, just two days later, the completion of Teladoc’s $18.5 billion merger with Livongo hammered home the prospects for virtual healthcare.

While Teladoc enjoys the clout and opportunities that come with being a dominant $25 billion company with clients in 130 countries, startups half a world away are also busy trying to perfect the telemedicine space and tap its potential.

For example, Indonesia’s Halodoc is developing a feature on its telemed platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to give doctors feedback on how well and quickly they perform services. The system also offers doctors advice from mentors on how to improve their patient consultations.

Halodoc’s product is being developed with machine-learning experts from Google’s Late-Stage Accelerator. It is already being used by about 5 percent of households in a country that’s home to 260 million people.

CEO Murray Brozinsky of virtual care platform Conversa Health told PYMNTS this summer that the pandemic has dramatically sped things up.

“This situation has really laid bare a lot of the issues that have been within the system for this whole time,” Brozinsky said. “And in addition to those, these days nobody wants any compromised patients coming anywhere near a clinic unless they have to be there. So, this notion of keeping patients connected without getting them infected has become kind of an additional mantra for us.”