This morning Shanghai-based CareVoice, a digital health startup targeting the insurance market, announced an eight-figure Series A raise totaling roughly $10 million, according to the startup. The new cash round was co-led by LUN Partners Group and an unnamed fintech fund with participation from DNA Capital, SoSV and Artesian Capital.
This comes about a year and a half after the company announced a $2 million raise in yearly-stage funding.
WHAT THEY DO
CareVoice's tool was orginally developed so that the patient consumer could view the differences in both cost and quality. Since then, the company has pivoted; it now partners with insurers to provide mobile-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool to their members. Through different partnerships with tech startups, it has been expanding its features and now includes an artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual nurse and fraud protection.
Most recently, the company launched CareVoiceOS, an operating system for payers that lets them make tailored insurance plans on the technology.
CareVoice started out in mainland China, where private healthcare and private health insurance are both still relatively young markets, and more recently launched in Hong Kong.
“Health insurance is the new growth engine for insurance in China,” Sebastien Gaudin, CEO of CareVoice, told MobiHealthNews.
While most Chinese citizens are covered under public health plans, for the most part those plans only cover the basics like visits with a primary care provider, he said. This has led to the growth of private insurers in China, Gaudin said.
“China is leap-frogging a lot in many industries and getting ahead of other markets. It’s interesting in health insurance because it is a quite new market,” he said.
So far, the company has made partnerships with 15 insurance companies and plans to expand across Asia.
WHAT IT'S FOR
CareVoice said it has three main focuses. The first is investing in research and development for its digital platform. It also plans on using the funds to expand its sales and customer success teams and international business development efforts. Lastly, it plans to launch 10 new health insurtech products.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
The payer market is quickly gaining traction in China. Perhaps the most notable in the space is Ping An Good Doctor, a one-stop health ecosystem. The company has quickly been launching new products. Earlier this week it launched its Private Doctor Service, which will connect clients to 24/7 online consultations, second-round consultations, offline clinical arrangement, health management and chronic disease management.
CareVoice counts the insurance giant among its current clients.
ON THE RECORD
“We foresee that insurance will be the next sector to experience the highest growth of digitalization and innovation as well as the arrival of new fintech unicorn companies,” Peilung Li, founder and chairman of LUN Partners Group, said in a statement. "CareVoice is driving digitalization and innovation for insurance companies, and we are very confident about its development in the Greater China market. To further aid the Company’s growth, LUN Partners will help CareVoice extend its proven digitalization solutions to overseas insurance marketplaces in Japan, Southeast Asia and other regions.”
