SoYoung Rumored to Seek US IPO

SoYoung (Xinyang 新氧) provides information on cosmetic medicine and procedures and allows users to book with partner clinics.

SoYoung is reportedly secretly preparing IPO on US stock exchanges as soon as in the first half of 2019. It is expected to raise around RMB 300 million (USD 4.4 million) in this IPO.

The company was valued over RMB 10 billion (USD 1.5 billion) with its last series E round of funding, RMB 70 million (USD 1 million) in September 2018. The last fund was led by Orchid Asia, with participation from BOC International (中银国际), Matrix Partners China, and the Russia-China Investment Fund.

It has completed its last 3 rounds of funding in the last 10 months. After its series E round of funding, it becomes a unicorn in the cosmetic and plastic industry.

The company was founded in August 2013 in Beijing, China. By the end of 2018, SoYoung has more than 35 million users and more than 30 thousand cosmetic and plastic surgeons registered on its platform. In the beginning, it only has around 1000 seed users and contents were contributed by its founding members.

Ending 2018, it partnered with more than 7000 clinics covering 351 cities. More than 40% of its partnered clinics were in the top ten cities in China, and most of them provide a whole range of services.

According to the white paper published by SoYoung in 2018, the Chinese cosmetic and plastic surgery market size is expected to reach RMB 224.5 billion (USD 33 billion) and the growth potential in China is 6 times higher than that in the Korean market. Deloitte predicts that the compound annual growth rate will be around 20.1% from 2018 to 2022.

Globally speaking, SoYoung’s biggest competitor is RealSelf.com, a US-based online community providing reviews, popularity rankings, and other general cosmetic and plastic surgery information. In 2017, SoYoung has the total number of visitors of 114 million surpassing RealSelf.com.