(Yicai Global) April 24 -- Tencent Trusted Doctors has reportedly raised USD250 million in a fundraising round, valuing the Chinese healthcare services platform at more than USD1 billion.

The financing was led by its parent company, Shenzhen-based tech colossus Tencent Holdings, a venture capital fund under developer Country Garden and GAW Capital Partners, according to science and tech news outlet TMTPost. The funds will go to develop the platform and the system that integrates the online and offline sectors.

This was the venture's first fundraising since it was formed last August in a merger of medical unit Tencent Doctorwork and Trusted Doctors, a doctor-patient interactive platform. Tencent Trusted Doctors now has 9.4 million registered patients and 440,000 licensed doctors. It has also set up 47 physical healthcare centers in eight cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

"Healthcare has always been the sector Tencent has valued highly," the report quoted Dowson Tong, president of Tencent's Cloud and Smart Industries Group, as saying. "Tencent Trusted Doctors will play the practitioner's role in the field of healthcare plus science and technology, promote the industrial upgrade of the medical sector and bring more value to companies, patients and other users."

Backed by Country Garden, one of China's leading real estate developers, Tencent Trusted Doctors plans a rapid offline expansion over the next two to three years with the aim of having more than 500 brick-and-mortar centers in 2021.

"The Guangdong-based property developer has huge offline communities, commercial land and school resources and can form an all-round strategic partnership with TTD [Tencent Trusted Doctors]," the report said, quoting Zhou Hongru, general manager at Country Garden's innovative investment division.