So-Young International, a Matrix Partners China-backed online marketplace for plastic surgery services, has filed to raise $150 million in an initial public offering (IPO) in the US.
The firm plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol SY.
So-Young, which claims to be the most popular online destination for discovering, evaluating, and reserving medical aesthetic services in China, has not specified the number of shares it intends to offer and the amount mentioned in the filing is likely a placeholder to calculate the filing fee.
“Our founders set up So-Young to transform the fast-growing yet opaque medical aesthetics market in China by providing transparent information, which ultimately allowed us to build a one-stop destination where users can conveniently find quality services,” the company said in its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Medical aesthetic services are elective procedures aimed to improve cosmetic appearance.
Launched in November 2013, So-Young International said it has facilitated medical aesthetic treatment transactions with aggregate value of Rmb2.1 billion ($306.6 million) through its platform last year, accounting for 33.1 per cent of the total amount paid for medical aesthetic treatment booked online last year.
It also claims over 240 million average monthly views of its rich media content distributed through social media networks and targeted media platforms in the fourth quarter of 2018.
So-Young generates revenues primarily through information service fees and reservation service fees charged to medical aesthetic service providers. Its revenues increased rapidly by 428.2 per cent from Rmb49.1 million ($7.3 million) in 2016 to Rmb617.2 million ($92 million) last year.
The company, which names Matrix Partners China, Trustbridge Partners, and Orchid Asia as among its principal shareholders, also booked a net income of Rmb55.1 million ($80 million) in 2018, compared to a net loss of Rmb81 million ($12 million) in 2016 and a net income of Rmb17.2 million ($2.6 million) in 2017.
The company has raised about $230 million in funding over six rounds, with the latest funding of $70 million raised on September 2018 from a Series E round led by Orchid Asia Group Management.
“We believe our business model, which connects a user’s innate desire to be more beautiful with a personal, emotionally-attached discovery and assessment process on our platform, is highly effective in facilitating users’ decision making and enhancing user experience,” the firm said.
According to a Frost and Sullivan study cited by So-Young, the medical aesthetic service industry in China is highly fragmented, competitive, but rapidly growing. In 2018, there were approximately 10,000 medical aesthetic service providers in the country, the report added.
The total revenues of the medical aesthetic services industry reached Rmb121.7 billion ($17.7 billion) in 2018, representing a CAGR of 23.6 per cent from 2014. The total revenues of this industry are expected to reach Rmb360.1 billion ($52.4 billion) by 2023, according to Frost and Sullivan.
“With such growth rate, China has become one of the fastest growing medical aesthetic service markets in the world, ranked the second in terms of market size in 2017, and is poised to become the largest market in the world by 2021,” the consulting firm said.
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