Internet group Tencent and reinsurance firm Swiss Re co-led a $230m funding round for China-based online medical insurance and crowdfunding platform Waterdrop yesterday, Reuters has reported, citing a company statement
Venture capital group IDG Capital and Wisdom Choice Global Fund also participated in the round. The funding was raised at a valuation of almost $2bn, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, one of which revealed that Swiss Re provided $100m of the capital.
Founded in 2016, Waterdrop operates a health insurance offering called Waterdrop Insurance Mall which has some 120 million customers, in addition to a service that crowdfunds medical treatment for users, and multiple mutual funds.
The company, which is known as Shuidihuzhu (or Shuidi) in China, is preparing to float in the United States and has hired Bank of America and Goldman Sachs as underwriters, two separate sources told Reuters.
The funding will go to the expansion of Waterdrop’s healthcare and medical services in addition to the upgrading of its big data and artificial intelligence technology.
Waterdrop had secured $74.3m in a Tencent-led series B round in April 2019 that included IDG Capital, Gaorong Capital, BlueRun Ventures, Sinovation Ventures, Wu Xiaoguang and Yuri Milner.
Tencent and Gaorong Capital returned in a $145m series C round for the company in June 2019 that was led by Boyu Capital and which also featured CICC Capital. Its shareholders include local services portal Meituan Dianping.
