AI medical company "Zero Hypothesis" secures nearly 100 million yuan in Series A financing to create a Chinese version of OpenEvidence | Exclusive from 36Kr
36Kr has exclusively learned that Zero Hypothesis, a company developing AI medical productivity tools, recently secured nearly 100 million yuan in Series A financing. The investors include Lotus Pond Venture Capital, Guofang Innovation, and Shanghai Zheyu Investment, with existing shareholder Yuanhe Origin making an over - subscription. This round of financing will mainly be used to refine and implement scenario - based AI medical agents and build an academic communication bridge between pharmaceutical companies and doctors. Weikuai Capital has long served as the exclusive financing advisor.
There are numerous scenarios for the implementation of AI in healthcare, ranging from AI in medical imaging and intelligent auxiliary diagnosis to AI + surgical robots and AI - based drug discovery, which have spawned many popular tracks in the past. However, unicorn company OpenEvidence in the United States and Chinese innovative enterprise Zero Hypothesis have targeted a scenario with great social value and closer to commercialization: Evidence - based medicine.
In the clinical process, doctors are usually proficient in treating common and frequently - occurring diseases. However, when facing rare diseases, difficult - to - diagnose conditions, or cutting - edge therapies, they often need to quickly and accurately search for evidence from a vast amount of global medical literature, guidelines, and clinical trial progress to support clinical decision - making. Therefore, developing high - quality AI productivity tools for them can greatly improve doctors' clinical and research efficiency.
On October 20th, OpenEvidence completed a $200 million Series C financing led by Google Ventures. This year, this startup positioned as a "doctor's AI co - pilot" quickly completed three rounds of financing, and its valuation soared from $1 billion at the beginning of the year to $6 billion. Continuous investment from technology giants and star venture capitalists shows the recognition of overseas capital for the potential of this track.
At present, many domestic enterprises are also trying to develop AI productivity tools for doctors. Founded in 2019, Zero Hypothesis, based on its years of accumulation in the medical field and in - depth understanding of pharmaceutical companies and doctors, has found a way that leads to the same goal as OpenEvidence.
Gu Fei, the founder of Zero Hypothesis, told 36Kr, "Many domestic investors regard us as the 'OpenEvidence of China'. Zero Hypothesis has similar goals, but the medical ecosystem in China is different from that in the United States. There are obvious differences in doctors' practice habits and drug regulatory environments. Therefore, in terms of implementation paths, product design, and building a commercial closed - loop, we need to start from the end - goal and fully consider the needs of C - end doctors and B - end pharmaceutical companies."
Compared with the United States, doctors in top - tier hospitals in China generally work longer hours and are busier. They have higher requirements for the usability and intelligence of tools. "Doctors need an intelligent agent with simple interaction, one that can anticipate their needs and provide accurate and comprehensive information, rather than a complex retrieval system." In addition, many domestic doctors need to balance clinical and research work simultaneously, and the role division is not as clear as that of overseas doctors. "So the AI tools provided to doctors should seamlessly connect these two scenarios."
Gu Fei believes that if starting directly with the C - end, it may be difficult to meet the requirements of top experts in terms of data accumulation and product refinement. Therefore, Zero Hypothesis has chosen a path where the B - end supports the C - end, and the C - end attracts the B - end. That is, it first targets leading pharmaceutical companies with high requirements for content professionalism and compliance. In the process of providing AI tools and services to pharmaceutical companies, it accumulates high - quality labeled data, iterates algorithms, and then promotes the 2C "KnowS" model and intelligent agent to doctors.
For AI medical tools, "hallucination" is a fatal weakness. Zero Hypothesis uses a series of methods to improve the scientific nature of cited evidence. According to Gu Fei, "At present, Zero Hypothesis has controlled the hallucination rate to the 'usable level for experts', which is less than 1%."
In terms of data collection and governance, five years ago, Zero Hypothesis established a part - time doctor team of about 100 people to carefully label the data. Deeper and more granular data labeling is the first line of defense against hallucination.
At the same time, it has built its own vertical medical database and search engine. When doctors use Zero Hypothesis, it does not directly start an online search. Instead, it obtains medical evidence from its self - built vertical medical database, which is updated daily. This database includes literature, guidelines, global medical conference data, clinical trials, and even high - quality academic self - media content to ensure the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and timeliness of data sources.
In addition, Zero Hypothesis has built an AI review model. Before providing answers to doctors, this model will conduct fact - checking on the content to further reduce hallucination.
After years of in - depth exploration in the field of AI healthcare, Gu Fei believes that entrepreneurs need to consider a complete commercial closed - loop from the beginning of product development. For AI medical productivity tools, doctors are high - frequency users, and pharmaceutical companies are important participants and payers. Therefore, understanding the marketing logic and core pain points of pharmaceutical companies is crucial.
Through years of cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, Zero Hypothesis has identified multiple business paths: providing "digital infrastructure" for pharmaceutical companies, that is, using AI to improve the content production and training efficiency of the medical, marketing, and sales teams within pharmaceutical companies; and providing digital marketing and promotion services. Gu Fei introduced, "At present, Zero Hypothesis has entered the supplier systems of more than 30 leading domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies, and most of them have given it the preferred supplier status."
It is reported that with the successful implementation of its domestic business model, Zero Hypothesis has set its sights on overseas markets such as Europe and Japan and started its overseas expansion. Its C - end products will also be deeply localized according to the medical guidelines and doctors' habits in different countries.
According to the forecast of Frost & Sullivan, the scale of China's pharmaceutical digital marketing market is expected to reach 356.8 billion yuan by 2030. Many global pharmaceutical companies are increasing their digital marketing spending. The market needs professional AI medical tools that are recognized by doctors and meet the compliance requirements of pharmaceutical companies to further improve doctors' diagnosis, treatment, and research efficiency.
Investors' Views:
Qiu Qing, Managing Director of Lotus Pond Venture Capital, said: Zero Hypothesis is an important layout of Lotus Pond Venture Capital in the field of vertical AI applications in medicine. The business of Zero Hypothesis is targeted at the tens of billions of yuan in marketing expenses of pharmaceutical companies in the Chinese pharmaceutical market, which meets the demand for evidence - based academic promotion and efficient medical information transmission under the supervision of the National Healthcare Security Administration. The company has spent years refining and accumulating in the vertical AI model in healthcare, forming a first - mover advantage and technical barriers. It has built a precise AI medical search engine and has been recognized by many well - known enterprises. The core team led by Mr. Gu Fei, the founder, has a deep understanding of the needs of pharmaceutical companies and doctors. It has established in - depth cooperation and trust with the top 30 MNC pharmaceutical companies and some large domestic pharmaceutical companies. The orders have achieved scale and high repurchase rates, and it has entered the preferred supplier list of most MNC pharmaceutical companies. Lotus Pond Venture Capital believes that the company has entered a stage of rapid growth in both B - end business and C - end doctor users, and looks forward to Zero Hypothesis becoming a widely - welcomed medical AI productivity tool among pharmaceutical companies and doctors in China and overseas as soon as possible.
Wei Yaguang, Partner of Guofang Innovation, said: We have long been concerned about vertical AI applications in the medical field, and the digital and intelligent marketing and academic promotion of innovative medical devices and drugs are one of the key focuses of future investment. Zero Hypothesis has spent years on this difficult path. By using AI to compress massive medical information, it has created a professional medical agent to solve the daily "evidence - based" problems of medical workers and made it possible to establish a global medical exchange and interaction community. We have also seen many possibilities and great potential value in Zero Hypothesis's innovative connection between pharmaceutical companies and doctors. We look forward to them truly building a new commercialization channel for innovative medical devices and drugs, turning the "last mile" into the "first mile".
Jiang Mingda, Partner of Yuanhe Origin, said: As an investor in the seed round of Zero Hypothesis, Yuanhe Origin has witnessed its unwavering commitment to the original intention of "solving the commercialization problems of innovative medical devices and drugs" since its establishment. With this perseverance, the team has made steady progress in the deep waters of professional academics and clinical practice, overcome many technical hurdles, and polished first - class products. When the AI wave swept across the healthcare field, we are even more convinced that Zero Hypothesis, with its continuously - iterated AI tools and in - depth industry - specific services, will surely become a trustworthy "symbiotic partner" for innovative medical device and drug companies. Therefore, in this round of financing, we continued to increase our investment and look forward to continuing to work with Zero Hypothesis to face the tough battle of commercialization and turn the "impossible" in the industry into the "new normal".