Brain science-based vision health startup Juehua Medical raises tens of millions of RMB in angel round, with Linear Capital as sole investor

36Kr has learned that brain-tech medical company Juehua Medical has completed an angel round of tens of millions of RMB, led by Linear Capital, with Qidian Capital serving as financial advisor for the round. The proceeds will go toward product iteration, clinical data accumulation, and team building.

Juehua Medical is a brain-tech medical company focused on visual health, dedicated to developing visual function detection and enhancement technologies based on neuroscience principles, as well as researching, producing, and selling related "digital drug" products and providing subsequent data mining and technical services.

Diao Qingsong, co-founder and CEO of Juehua Medical, told 36Kr that he and fellow co-founder Huang Changbing were university classmates. Diao brings over 20 years of commercialization experience in the medical field, while Huang has more than two decades of scientific research under his belt. Together they founded Juehua Medical. They also enlisted Professor Lv Zhonglin, an internationally renowned expert in visual perception, neuroscience, and learning training, as the company's chief scientific advisor. Huang Changbing is currently a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Psychology, and Lv Zhonglin is currently a professor at NYU Shanghai and New York University. For over 20 years, they have been committed to visual neuroscience research.

According to sources, Juehua Medical has co-developed and established the iAVT (individualized adaptive visual function training) core technology system, and has essentially completed its global patent layout. Diao explained that iAVT technology comprises four technical modules: precise detection, personalized program development, adaptive training, and efficacy assurance. That is, it conducts precise detection of each patient's or individual's visual function to identify functional damage targets, provides specific visual training programs based on similarities and differences in damage mechanisms, and continuously makes dynamic adjustments during the training and treatment process to ensure final therapeutic outcomes.

Going forward, the company will also expand its product pipeline to include visual field defects (including brain optic nerve center damage, glaucoma, etc.) and low vision (including cataracts, etc.), covering "digital drug" products that integrate visual health detection, monitoring, prediction, treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention.

Diao emphasized that the aforementioned "digital drugs" fall within the category of digital therapeutics, but with specific requirements for treatment course, active ingredients and dosage, efficacy, and indication segmentation.

According to his introduction, the company's amblyopia treatment product received Class II medical device registration approval from the National Medical Products Administration in Q1 2022. It is currently conducting "head-to-head" clinical studies against the gold standard "occlusion therapy" for amblyopia treatment at institutions including Wenzhou Medical University's Eye Hospital and Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, aiming to participate in developing new expert consensus and industry standards and advance the evolution of clinical treatment guidelines.

Regarding commercialization exploration, given that amblyopia "digital drugs" represent an entirely new category, the company plans to proceed as follows: first, adopting a B2H2C business model; second, conducting post-market clinical research programs to explore and establish innovative "digital drug" clinical pathways together with clinical experts.

To date, Juehua Medical's products have also gained recognition and adoption from users such as Wenzhou Medical University's Eye Hospital, China Disabled Persons' Federation Assistive Devices Center, Huawei, and China National Institute of Standardization, with some establishing long-term strategic partnerships.

On the demand side, the importance of visual health is self-evident — vision is the primary source of human sensory information (>80%), yet the population with visual health problems is enormous. According to WHO statistics, visual health issues have been ranked alongside cancer and cardiovascular disease as one of the three global conditions most severely impacting quality of life. Per WHO data, over 2.2 billion people worldwide have vision impairment, and various types of visual impairment affect over 500 million people in China.

Diao noted that taking amblyopia as an example, its incidence rate in China is roughly 3% (about 42 million people). Using a rough estimate of 50% treatment rate and per capita treatment cost of 5,000–10,000 RMB, the amblyopia treatment market exceeds 100 billion RMB.

On the supply side, current market solutions focus mainly on ophthalmic medication, surgery, and other approaches, making it difficult to address many existing visual health problems. The human visual system comprises two parts: the eye (called the front end) and the brain (the visual cortex; called the back end). Current clinical medical techniques focus primarily on the eye, i.e., the front end of the visual system. Many problems/diseases are difficult to resolve, such as aging or issues and diseases that occur mainly in the back end (like amblyopia).

Targeting this gap, Juehua Medical has focused on the back end of the visual system (the brain center), integrating brain technology, vision science, ophthalmology, and artificial intelligence technology. Through deep development and efficient utilization of brain plasticity, it precisely assesses and efficiently repairs damaged or degraded visual functions, addressing pain points in clinical visual health needs.

According to sources, taking amblyopia alone as an example, the global objective medical expert ranking system Expertscape shows that current major hubs for amblyopia basic research include UC Berkeley, McGill University in Canada, Ohio State University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Psychology, and Wenzhou Medical University. Judging from dimensions including published SCI papers, speed of technology translation and certification, and team composition, Juehua Medical has certain advantages.

Zeng Yingzhe, partner at Linear Capital, stated: "The core of digital therapeutics is treatment — this is the key to transforming the entire healthcare ecosystem. The Juehua team has leveraged over 20 years of research achievements in visual neuroscience to launch iAVT technology, which innovatively uses efficient adaptive algorithms to develop personalized treatment programs that help patients effectively treat visual health problems, achieving globally leading efficacy data. The founding team has strong capabilities in product technology development and commercialization. We will long-term support the Juehua team's continued exploration in the technology-driven visual health field and accompany their growth."

Ms. Ye Lan, founding partner of Qidian Capital, stated: We thank the founding team for their trust, and Qidian Capital is honored to serve as financial advisor for this round. As a family member of a child with amblyopia, I deeply understand the worries and distress of family members. Currently, society does not pay enough attention to amblyopia, and traditional treatment methods struggle to meet needs. Digital treatment for pediatric strabismus and amblyopia has already become a pioneer in the digital therapeutics field. Despite the many advantages of digital treatment in pediatric strabismus and amblyopia treatment, its penetration rate still lags behind traditional treatment, leaving enormous room for improvement. Juehua Medical will promote the use of digital treatment in the visual health field, provide more real-world data for clinical research, bring revolutionary treatment experiences and effective means to patients, and benefit the vast number of patients. We believe Juehua Medical can drive and lead the development of this field.

About Linear Capital

We are hiring for our investment team, with multiple positions currently open. For details, please click here.

Linear Capital is an early-stage investment institution focused on "frontier technology + industry" — that is, frontier technologies represented by data intelligence, digital new infrastructure, next-generation robotics technology, and new technology transformations in traditional fields (such as biomedicine, materials, energy, etc.), applied across vertical industries to substantially improve industrial efficiency, empower them to solve pain point problems, and complete industrial upgrading, achieving excess returns through substantial increases in industrial value. It currently manages ten funds with total AUM of approximately US$2 billion.

Our investment stage focuses mainly on leading angel to Series A rounds, with typical investment amounts of US$3–8 million or RMB equivalent per project.

To date, we have made early-stage investments in over 120 startup teams including Horizon Robotics (US$3B), Kujiale (>$1B), Sensors Data, Tezign, Rokid, Guandata, Agile Robots, and others. The combined valuation of Linear Capital's portfolio companies is approximately US$20 billion.

In the near term, Linear Capital is working to become the best "Data Intelligence Technology Fund," and in the long term, gradually build itself into the most influential "Frontier Technology Application Fund."