TENCENT Trusted Doctor, a venture backed by tech giant Tencent Holdings, said it has raised US$250 million in a fundraising round, as investors pile into China’s online private health-care sector.

The fundraising marked the first investment since the entity was formed through a merger of Tencent Doctorwork and Trusted Doctors last year.

Tencent Trusted Doctor is among a number of technology-driven firms looking to shake up China’s overburdened public health-care market, with increasingly affluent consumers willing to pay for more convenient access to doctors and health services.

Tencent-backed WeDoctor, which offers online consultations and doctor appointments, raised US$500 million in May at a valuation of US$5.5 billion. Ping An Good Doctor, a similar platform backed by Ping An Insurance, raised US$1.1 billion in an IPO last year.

Alibaba is working with a hospital in Shanghai using data to predict patient demand and allocate doctors. In Zhejiang Province, the company is working on AI-assisted diagnosis tools to help analyze medical images such as CT scans and MRIs.

The investment in Tencent Trusted Doctor was led by Country Garden Holdings, Tencent Holdings and Sequoia Capital, Tencent Trusted Doctor said in a statement.

It would value Tencent Trusted Doctor at more than US$1 billion.

McKinsey & Co. estimates Chinese health-care spending will hit US$1 trillion by 2020.

Tencent Trusted Doctor said it connects 440,000 certified doctors with more than 10 million patients online, offering services from online consulting to e-commerce to physical checks.

The company said it also aimed to have more than 500 medical institutions offline in China by 2021.(SD-Agencies)