5Y News | 5Y Capital Portfolio Company Deepwise Completes Nearly RMB 100 Million Series C1 Funding Round
Bringing AI medical imaging into grassroots healthcare.
Shanghai Shenzhi Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Shenzhi Technology"), a leading AI ultrasound company, announced the completion of a new funding round of nearly RMB 100 million, led by a well-known institutional investor with New Silk Road Capital participating. The proceeds will be used primarily for continued R&D of high-performance AI medical imaging and portable high-performance intelligent ultrasound medical devices.
Shenzhi Technology started with AI, big data, and use cases, introducing artificial intelligence into ultrasound diagnosis to create convenient, intelligent, and low-cost equipment. 5Y Capital invested in its Series B+ round.
Currently, Shenzhi Technology's products and services have gradually covered nearly 10,000 primary-level medical institutions, with projected revenue exceeding three times last year's figure and overall scale growing to the hundreds of millions. The company believes that through continued R&D investment in integrated medical device hardware and software, it can provide customers with increasingly convenient medical imaging diagnostic services.
As a company committed to providing high-performance integrated intelligent medical solutions for the basic medical and health service system, Shenzhi Technology has been a leader in empowering primary-level healthcare with AI technology. Through long-term R&D accumulation and commercial progress, the company has broken through the limitations of single imaging modalities. Based on a powerful high-performance imaging computing platform, it has deployed leading portable ultrasound scanning devices to primary-level medical and clinical specialty settings. Starting from this foundation, Shenzhi will pioneer AI technology in the blue ocean of MRI, building new application scenarios for integrated imaging solutions from scratch. Beyond massive big data learning and enhancement, Shenzhi possesses self-developed ultrasound AI underlying algorithms that provide sensitivity and specificity approaching "1." Furthermore, by using AI to lower equipment usage barriers and assist clinical diagnosis, the company further builds its competitive moat by unleashing such AI application advantages in scenario-based deployment.
Shenzhi Technology Ultrasound Probe Technology
Shenzhi Technology's CEO expressed his long-term ambitions for the company: "AI ultrasound R&D is a systematic engineering project. As a platform company with AI algorithms as its underlying technology, if we don't deeply understand the hardware platform, if we don't do well in portable high-performance intelligent ultrasound as the carrier, if we don't go to primary-level settings to see whether there are good diagnostic recognition rates, then as a company we cannot more thoroughly grasp imaging quality and usage methods beyond the algorithm level, and polish the next terminal device that better meets market needs, to ultimately win in the long-term value race of artificial intelligence." He also emphasized that "Shenzhi Technology has now fully completed its 1.0 product transformation, and will rhythmically evolve from 2.0 software self-development and deep hardware integration toward a 3.0 software-hardware integrated ecosystem model through rapid iteration."
Looking back at the company's development in 2021, Shenzhi Technology officially upgraded its brand name from Soundwise to Senz, and its AI department was officially renamed Sentel. This marked Shenzhi Technology's major upgrade from its previous focus on ultrasound AI-assisted diagnostic solutions to AI high-performance medical imaging solutions. Looking ahead, it is rhythmically building toward its top-level vision — an integrated smart medical health service platform. With multiple points of effort, from two advanced medical products empowering the basic medical and health service system to high-performance integrated intelligent medical solutions, it awaits the arrival of the singularity and the footsteps of peak industry innovation.
In terms of team background, Shenzhi Technology was co-founded by a team of PhD returnees from Columbia University and top domestic and international medical imaging experts, including the strong addition of a pioneer of China's first-generation handheld ultrasound. The team's disciplinary backgrounds span biomedical science, machine learning, electrical engineering, mechanical automation and other medical-engineering interdisciplinary fields, covering core nodes of imaging production and research including imaging technology, algorithms, image navigation, and chip computing power.
As representative diagnostic methods of advanced human body imaging, ultrasound imaging and MRI, combined with the wisdom of traditional medicine integrating experience with technological innovation, are undeniably important to medical progress and development.
Looking at current market conditions, there remains significant unevenness in China's medical equipment allocation and many gaps and deficiencies in primary-level medical equipment technology. Seizing the national opportunity of pandemic prevention and control to address weaknesses, plug loopholes, strengthen deficiencies, and build a robust public health system, the construction of new medical infrastructure is timely. With trillion-level policy leverage driving hundred-billion-level market momentum, and as the intersection of two national strategies — "Healthy China" and "Digital China" — the "new infrastructure" of digital healthcare has been accelerating under policy guidance. It is estimated that China's smart healthcare market will exceed RMB 500 billion by 2025.
Even greater market growth lies in the overall strategic planning for "big health" in the "Healthy China" initiative.
In March 2021, the Fourth Session of the 13th National People's Congress approved the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035. The Outline proposed: placing the protection of people's health in a strategically prioritized position for development, adhering to a prevention-first policy, deeply implementing the Healthy China initiative, improving national health promotion policies, weaving a tight national public health protection network, and providing comprehensive lifelong health services for the people. In terms of market forecasts, China's big health industry market reached RMB 7.4 trillion last year, and in 2021 the market size will be at least RMB 8 trillion.
With policy as the catalyst, with the momentum for transformation and industry-recognized consensus, the company has also achieved some key milestones in its rapid development:
AI Hardware and Software Combined
As some specific manifestations of commercial progress, Shenzhi Technology's products and services have successfully covered and penetrated more than 5,000 primary-level medical institutions, holding an absolutely leading market share in the fields of intelligent primary-level imaging equipment and telemedicine solutions. In 2021, the group's main business revenue exceeded RMB 200 million, more than three times last year's figure. Among this, imaging equipment achieved growth far exceeding the industry average.
Commercial Progress
Today, the healthcare industry stands on the eve of major transformation. Technological progress is redrawing the landscape of healthcare, and Dr. Zhu Ruixing, CEO of Shenzhi Technology, shared his vision for future development: "As China continues to improve its tiered medical system, demand for high-performance medical imaging technology and equipment continues to grow. Shenzhi will continue to explore applications of AI technology and equipment in the medical field, bringing AI medical imaging truly into primary-level healthcare, better alleviating the country's insufficient allocation of medical resources, improving the diagnostic level of the basic medical and health service system, and comprehensively contributing to national health."
5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital) currently manages approximately RMB 32 billion in dual-currency USD and RMB funds. 5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires lone entrepreneurs, providing them with support from spiritual to all operational aspects. We believe that if the "crazy you" in others' eyes begins to be believed in, the world will become a different place.
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