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Question: Intro to 九安医疗 (Andon Health) and how it invested in DeepSeek and Kimi

Answer

九安医疗 is a Chinese medical device company famous for its iHealth brand. It originally focused on consumer healthcare hardware:

The company became extremely profitable during COVID because its iHealth COVID-19 antigen self-test kits sold massively overseas. In 2022, revenue reached about RMB 26.3 billion and net profit about RMB 16 billion, creating a large cash reserve. (Jiemian News)

After accumulating cash, the company changed from a pure medical-device company into a technology investment holding company, looking for “next decade” opportunities in:

Its own description says it has invested in areas including AI, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and other frontier technologies. (iHealth Labs)

1. Investment in Kimi (Moonshot AI)

Kimi is developed by 月之暗面.

九安 invested through offshore and fund structures:

First investment

August 2023:

Second investment

March 2024:

Total:

九安 → Moonshot AI

≈ $30 million investment

The company later clarified that its ownership percentage was small and it did not control Moonshot. (Sina Finance)

The interesting part is timing:

Aug 2023
    |
    | 九安 invests
    ↓
Mar 2024
    |
    | Kimi long-context AI becomes famous
    ↓
Market discovers 九安 = Kimi investor

This was a classic venture-style asymmetric bet:

2. Investment in DeepSeek

DeepSeek is developed by 杭州深度求索人工智能基础技术研究有限公司.

According to disclosed information:

The calculation:

DeepSeek valuation ≈ hundreds of billions RMB

九安 stake:
0.21%

750M RMB investment
        ↓
paper value potentially much higher

But 九安 itself emphasized:

3. Why did a medical company invest in AI?

This is actually the interesting strategic question.

The logic is:

Medical data + AI = huge future market

A company like 九安 already has:

Medical devices
      +
Consumer health users
      +
Health data
      +
AI models

Potential future products:

Smart blood pressure monitor
          |
          v
AI health assistant
          |
          v
Personal medical agent

Similar to Apple’s health ecosystem:

Device → Data → Intelligence → Service

Large language models make this much more valuable.

4. 九安’s investment style

It resembles a mini Japanese-style corporate venture strategy:

Old business:

Medical hardware
      |
      |
      v
Cash generation

Then:

Cash
 |
 +--> AI startups
 |
 +--> Robotics
 |
 +--> Semiconductor
 |
 +--> Biotech

Basically:

Use a mature business cash flow to buy options on future technologies.

Similar examples:

5. Was it luck?

Partly, but the timing shows some intelligence.

The sequence:

2020-2022
COVID kit boom
       |
       v
Huge cash pile
       |
       v
2023
AI foundation model race begins
       |
       v
九安 buys Moonshot
       |
       v
2024
Kimi becomes famous
       |
       v
2026
九安 invests DeepSeek

The important insight:

They were not betting on “AI apps”.

They were betting on foundation model infrastructure.

That is closer to investing in:

rather than investing in an AI wrapper app.

My view

九安医疗 is an interesting example of a Chinese public company transforming itself:

Medical device company
        |
        v
COVID cash machine
        |
        v
Technology investment platform
        |
        v
AI ecosystem investor

The DeepSeek + Kimi combination is especially notable because they picked two of China’s strongest reasoning-model companies.

However, the financial impact should not be exaggerated:

The strategic lesson is more interesting:

A company with a strong cash-generating business can buy “future technology options” before the market realizes their value.

References:

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