Orthopedic AI Company Changmugu Completes Tens of Millions of RMB Pre-A Round | FreeS Fund Investment News

" Investor Perspective

Li Feng, Founding Partner, FreeS Fund

Email: feng@freesvc.com

Over the past year, Longwood Valley's AI solutions have steadily matured, its commercial flywheel has become increasingly clear, and its team has grown more complete — making significant progress all around. The next step is nationwide rollout of Longwood Valley's AI products, truly empowering grassroots doctors and serving more patients. That's something well worth looking forward to. We're doubling down on Longwood Valley and remain bullish for the long term.

"

[Exclusive] AI Orthopedics High-Tech Firm Longwood Valley Closes Tens of Millions of RMB in Pre-A Round, Led by Legend Star, with FreeS Fund and Wanhui Capital Participating

Source: VBData | Author: Jiao Yanli

On September 24, Beijing Longwood Valley Medical Technology announced the completion of a Pre-A round worth tens of millions of RMB. Legend Star led the round, with FreeS Fund and Wanhui Capital participating. Proceeds will go toward expanding the company's AI orthopedic product line, pursuing clinical registration certificates, and driving clinical adoption of its AI products. In November 2018, Longwood Valley had previously raised a seed round of tens of millions of RMB led by FreeS Fund.

Born on the Campuses of Harvard University and Stanford University

Grown in Beijing's Zhongguancun

Longwood Valley is an AI medical product developer that provides hospitals with end-to-end AI-powered orthopedic diagnosis and treatment solutions, built on artificial intelligence, medical big data, and cloud computing. The founding team first came together in the Longwood Medical Area near Harvard Medical School and in Silicon Valley at Stanford University — hence the company name "Longwood Valley."

The company currently has an R&D team of medical scientists and AI engineers from world-class institutions including Harvard University, Stanford University, Tsinghua University, and Peking University — a classic medicine-engineering hybrid team.

Based in Beijing's Zhongguancun, known as "China's Silicon Valley," CEO Dr. Zhang Yiling said: "The hardest part of AI healthcare is product deployment. Our medicine-engineering team lets Longwood Valley identify real clinical pain points, deeply understand what doctors actually need, and develop AI products that solve real problems for orthopedic surgeons."

Since its founding, the company has been recognized as a Zhongguancun High-Tech Enterprise and a Zhongguancun Eagle Talent Enterprise, and received the "Orthopedic Innovation and Translation Award" at the Chinese Orthopaedic Association's COA conference.

Focused on AI-Assisted End-to-End Surgical Solutions

Approximately 150 million people in China suffer from bone and joint diseases. As the ultimate treatment for joint disease, artificial joint replacement surgery has seen explosive growth in recent years. In 2018, China performed 700,000 such procedures, with annual growth holding steady at 15-20%. Dr. Zhang Yiling explained: "Precise preoperative surgical planning is the key determinant of success in joint replacement surgery. For a long time, domestic orthopedic surgeons have lacked suitable tools, generally relying on manual measurement of X-rays for preoperative assessment. This makes precision difficult, so surgeons can only determine implant size and positioning during the operation itself — leading to high surgical difficulty, low reproducibility, and elevated risk." Traditional methods depend heavily on the lead surgeon's experience, and patients frequently suffer postoperative complications including leg length discrepancy, prosthetic loosening and dislocation, and periprosthetic fracture.

Longwood Valley therefore decided to use artificial intelligence as its breakthrough point for orthopedic joint replacement surgery, independently developing an optimal solution that combines surgical simulation algorithms, image processing algorithms, and deep learning methods to achieve 3D precision preoperative planning for joint replacement through computer assistance. Combined with 3D-printed patient-specific surgical navigation guides, this enables precise intraoperative execution of the AI-generated preoperative plan, improving accuracy and safety while enhancing reproducibility and effectively reducing postoperative complication rates.

Deep Medicine-Engineering Integration Is Key to Success in AI + Healthcare

In its first year, Longwood Valley established deep research collaborations with dozens of top orthopedic centers including Beijing 301 Hospital, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Peking University Third Hospital, Peking University People's Hospital, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Wuhan Orthopedic Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University, Second Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University, Fuzhou Second Hospital Affiliated to Xiamen University, First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Second Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, and Shijiazhuang Third Hospital. The company is converting the invaluable clinical expertise of authoritative orthopedic specialists into standardized intelligent systems for future deployment to grassroots hospitals nationwide.

"Because of the high surgical threshold and long learning curve, very few doctors at grassroots hospitals can perform joint replacement surgery, leaving large numbers of patients unable to receive treatment locally," said Dr. Zhang Yiling. "AI technology can push top-tier orthopedic surgery from being experience-based and approximate toward being standardized, precise, personalized, and intelligent — lowering the surgical threshold and shortening the learning curve for young doctors, empowering more grassroots physicians."

Going forward, Longwood Valley will develop products targeting various orthopedic conditions, expanding its product portfolio to provide surgeons with intelligent assistance across the full care continuum: disease screening, intelligent diagnosis, clinical decision-making, preoperative planning, implant selection, surgical simulation, and patient follow-up. Through AI-assisted diagnosis and treatment, the company aims to elevate the overall clinical capabilities of grassroots hospitals and younger doctors, using AI to empower orthopedics and deliver world-leading orthopedic AI solutions to Chinese patients.