Digital therapeutics enterprise "Wenzhi Technology" has obtained new financing again and has released multiple digital solutions.
"The dopamine reward mechanism is closely related to the commercial prosperity in the past 500 years. But this time, we hope to reverse the use of this mechanism to solve many problems that plague human health and even prevent the occurrence of some diseases," said Du Xin, CEO of Wenzhi Technology, at the recent product launch.
Wenzhi Technology was founded in 2020 and is a digital health enterprise focused on cigarette harm reduction and nicotine addiction therapy. CEO Du Xin is also the founding partner of Niniu Capital, and the projects he has invested in include Soul App, etc. Previously, Wenzhi Technology has completed two rounds of financing totaling over 100 million yuan, with the investors being Niniu Capital and XVC.
It is also learned that Wenzhi Technology has recently obtained a new round of financing from Zhejiang Yuhuan State Investment. In the future, the company will gradually build its own automated production base and marketing center in Yuhuan City.
In his past investment history, Du Xin is quite fond of the "dopamine track". The reason why he chose to get involved personally rather than just be an "onlooker" four years ago is that he believes that Wenzhi Technology "has three characteristics that make it a super project in the dopamine track": First, the population base is huge, with at least 300 million potential users in China alone; second, it is accompanied by an addiction mechanism, which means that its repurchase and customer retention "will be very good"; finally, the technical barrier is relatively stronger, and it is difficult for competitors to "quickly follow".
Four years after its establishment, Wenzhi Technology officially released three digital health solutions: "Niketin", "Herbal Heat Activation Series Products", and "Wenzhi VNS Sleep Aid". These solutions will be applied to modern health problem scenarios such as nicotine addiction, the new generation of Chinese herbal medicine delivery technology, and improvement of insomnia and anxiety in the future.
Take the "Niketin" solution for nicotine addiction as an example: For "smokers", a major difficulty in quitting smoking is to overcome withdrawal symptoms. And Wenzhi Technology's solution is precisely trying to use the dopamine reward mechanism to solve the addiction problem.
(Image source: Wenzhi Technology)
Du Xin explained that the reason why people are addicted to nicotine is that after nicotine enters the human body, it will quickly combine with the receptor and enhance dopamine secretion, thereby strengthening the sense of satisfaction. "But the nicotine intake method like tobacco combustion will produce a large number of harmful substances and damage physical health. And the solution we want to create is to allow everyone to develop a healthier alternative lifestyle while maintaining the habitual behavior of obtaining dopamine."
Based on this, the "Niketin" solution is no longer to force users to quit abruptly, but to replace it with a healthier solution while maintaining existing habits. It is reported that this solution adopts a "one platform, two terminals" design, including three products: exhaled gas CO meter, filter coke purifier and AI intelligent assistant. Among them, the filter coke purifier, which is the first to be launched to the market, uses WHC (WONZ Heat Currents) technology to thermally distill and separate traditional cigarettes.
In other words, for those who are temporarily unable to quit smoking, the first step is to "reduce harm", then influence their behavior patterns, and then transition to the possibility of completely quitting smoking.
In July last year, an experiment on this filter coke purifier device of Wenzhi Technology was completed led by the team of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University. The purpose of this experiment is to preliminarily evaluate the impact of using this device to heat traditional cigarettes on health-related biomarkers and cigarette use patterns in adult smokers who do not intend to quit smoking.
The results showed that 56% of the subjects were still able to insist on using the cigarettes heated by this device completely during the flexible use period, and the scores of smoking craving and withdrawal symptoms decreased; about 84% of the subjects believed that this device can "replace smoking traditional cigarettes to a large extent".
In addition, the relevant test report data shows that this filter coke purifier can comprehensively filter out more than 90% of harmful substances including tar, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and heavy metals, effectively reducing the generation and inhalation of harmful substances.
In addition, the products launched by Wenzhi Technology this time also include the technological innovation achievement "Herbal Heat Activation" in the field of Chinese herbal medicine, and the non-invasive brain-computer interface product "Wenzhi VNS Sleep Aid" that applies vagus nerve regulation technology.
It is worth mentioning that Wenzhi Technology has made many progresses in commercializing overseas. In 2024, the company has successively obtained operating rights on e-commerce, payment, logistics and other platforms, and has started sales in countries such as Australia, Germany, and Japan. In addition, Wenzhi Technology is building a production base in Hainan, "expecting to get more help in going overseas by leveraging the friendly policies of the Hainan Free Trade Port towards digital therapy".