Form F-1

F-1 1 d95574df1.htm FORM F-1 Form F-1

As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 16, 2021

Registration No. 333-

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549

FORM F-1

REGISTRATION STATEMENT

UNDER

THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933

Waterdrop Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

Not Applicable


Cayman Islands	7370	Not Applicable
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)	(Primary Standard Industrial Classification Code Number)	(I.R.S. Employer Identification Number)

Block C, Wangjing Science and Technology Park

No. 2 Lize Zhonger Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing

People’s Republic of China

+86 10 5339-4997

(Address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of Registrant’s principal executive offices)

Cogency Global Inc.

122 East 42nd Street, 18th Floor

New York, NY 10168

(800) 221-0102

(Name, address, including zip code, and telephone number, including area code, of agent for service)

Copies to:

Z. Julie Gao, Esq.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

c/o 42/F, Edinburgh Tower, The Landmark

15 Queen’s Road Central

Hong Kong

+852 3740-4700

Yuting Wu, Esq.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Jing An Kerry Centre

Tower II, 46th Floor

1539 Nanjing West Road

Shanghai 200040, China

+86 21-6193-8200

Li He, Esq.

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

c/o 18th Floor

The Hong Kong Club Building

3A Chater Road Central

Hong Kong

+852 2533-3300

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public:

as soon as practicable after the effective date of this registration statement.

If any of the securities being registered on this Form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act of 1933, check the following box. ☐

If this Form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, please check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. ☐

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. ☐

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933.

Emerging growth company ☒

If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards† provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act. ☐

† The term “new or revised financial accounting standard” refers to any update issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to its Accounting Standards Codification after April 5, 2012.

CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE



Title of each class of securities to be registered	Proposed maximum aggregate offering price⁽²⁾⁽³⁾	Amount of registration fee
Class A ordinary shares, par value US$0.000005 per share⁽¹⁾	US$100,000,000	US$10,910

(1)	American depositary shares issuable upon deposit of Class A ordinary shares registered hereby will be registered under a separate registration statement on Form F-6 (Registration No. 333- ). Each American depositary share represents Class A ordinary shares.

(2)

Includes Class A ordinary shares that are issuable upon the exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option. Also includes Class A ordinary shares initially offered and sold outside the United States that may be resold from time to time in the United States either as part of their distribution or within 40 days after the later of the effective date of this registration statement and the date the shares are first bona fide offered to the public. These Class A ordinary shares are not being registered for the purpose of sales outside the United States.

(3)	Estimated solely for the purpose of determining the amount of registration fee in accordance with Rule 457(o) under the Securities Act of 1933.

The Registrant hereby amends this Registration Statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the Registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this Registration Statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or until the Registration Statement shall become effective on such date as the Securities and Exchange Commission, acting pursuant to said Section 8(a), may determine.

The information in this preliminary prospectus is not complete and may be changed. We [and the selling shareholders] may not sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This preliminary prospectus is not an offer to sell these securities and we are not soliciting offers to buy these securities in any state where the offer or sale is not permitted.

PRELIMINARY PROSPECTUS (Subject to Completion)

Dated , 2021.

American Depositary Shares

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Waterdrop Inc.

Representing Class A ordinary shares

We are offering American depositary shares, or ADSs[, and the selling shareholders identified in this prospectus are offering ADSs]. [We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ADSs by the selling shareholders.] This is our initial public offering and no public market currently exists for our ADSs or Class A ordinary shares. Each ADS represents of our Class A ordinary shares, par value US$0.000005 per share. We anticipate the initial public offering price per ADS will be between US$ and US$ .

We have applied for the listing of the ADSs on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WDH.”

We are an “emerging growth company” under applicable U.S. federal securities laws and are eligible for reduced public company reporting requirements.

Immediately prior to the completion of this offering, our issued and outstanding share capital will consist of Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares, and Mr. Peng Shen, the chairman of our board of directors and chief executive officer, will beneficially own all of our issued and outstanding Class B ordinary shares. These Class B ordinary shares will constitute approximately % of our total issued and outstanding share capital immediately after the completion of this offering and % of the aggregate voting power of our total issued and outstanding share capital immediately after the completion of this offering, assuming that the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs. Holders of Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares have the same rights except for voting and conversion rights. Each Class A ordinary share is entitled to one vote, and each Class B ordinary share is entitled to nine votes and is convertible into one Class A ordinary share at any time by the holder thereof. In addition, the Class B ordinary shares held by Mr. Peng Shen or his affiliated entities shall be automatically immediately converted into the same number of Class A ordinary shares in the event that Mr. Shen ceases to be employed by and ceases to act as a director of our Company. Class A ordinary shares are not convertible into Class B ordinary shares under any circumstances.

Investing in the ADSs involves risks. See “Risk Factors” beginning on page 21.

PRICE US$ PER ADS

Price to
Public

Underwriting
Discounts and
Commissions⁽¹⁾

Proceeds to
Us

[Proceeds to
Selling
Shareholders

Per ADS

US$

Total

US$

]

(1)

For additional underwriting compensation information, see “Underwriting.”

We have granted the underwriters the right to purchase up to an additional ADSs to cover over-allotments.

Neither the United States Securities and Exchange Commission nor any other regulatory body has approved or disapproved of these securities, or determined if this prospectus is truthful or complete. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

The underwriters expect to deliver the ADSs against payment in U.S. dollars to purchasers on or about , 2021.


Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C.		Morgan Stanley		BofA Securities



ABCI	China Merchants Securities (HK)	China Renaissance	CLSA	Haitong International

(*in alphabetical order*)



FUTU		Tiger Brokers
(*in alphabetical order*)

Prospectus dated , 2021.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS


Prospectus Summary			1
Risk Factors			21
Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements			74
Use of Proceeds			76
Dividend Policy			77
Capitalization			78
Dilution			80
Enforceability of Civil Liabilities			82
Corporate History and Structure			84
Selected Consolidated Financial Data			89
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations			93
Industry			119
Business			127
Regulation			148
Management			172
Principal [and Selling] Shareholders			181
Related Party Transactions			184
Description of Share Capital			185
Description of American Depositary Shares			199
Shares Eligible for Future Sale			211
Taxation			213
Underwriting			221
Expenses Related to this Offering			235
Legal Matters			236
Experts			237
Where You Can Find Additional Information			238
Index to the Consolidated Financial Statements			F-1

You should rely only on the information contained in this prospectus or in any related free writing prospectus. We have not authorized anyone to provide you with information different from that contained in this prospectus or in any related free writing prospectus. We[ and the selling shareholders] are offering to sell, and seeking offers to buy the ADSs, only in jurisdictions where offers and sales are permitted. The information contained in this prospectus is accurate only as of the date of this prospectus, regardless of the time of delivery of this prospectus or any sale of the ADSs.

Neither we nor any of the underwriters has taken any action to permit a public offering of the ADSs outside the United States or to permit the possession or distribution of this prospectus or any filed free writing prospectus outside the United States. Persons outside the United States who come into possession of this prospectus or any filed free writing prospectus must inform themselves about and observe any restrictions relating to the offering of the ADSs and the distribution of the prospectus or any filed free writing prospectus outside the United States.

Until , 2021 (the 25th day after the date of this prospectus), all dealers that buy, sell or trade ADSs, whether or not participating in this offering, may be required to deliver a prospectus. This is in addition to the obligation of dealers to deliver a prospectus when acting as underwriters and with respect to their unsold allotments or subscriptions.

PROSPECTUS SUMMARY

The following summary is qualified in its entirety by, and should be read in conjunction with, the more detailed information and financial statements appearing elsewhere in this prospectus. In addition to this summary, we urge you to read the entire prospectus carefully, especially the risks of investing in the ADSs discussed under “Risk Factors,” before deciding whether to invest in the ADSs. This prospectus contains information from an industry report commissioned by us and prepared by iResearch Consulting Group, or iResearch, a third-party research firm, to provide information regarding our industry and our market position in China. We refer to this report as the “iResearch report.”

Our Mission

We at Waterdrop aspire to bring insurance and healthcare service to billions through technology.

Overview

We are a leading technology platform dedicated to insurance and healthcare service with a positive social impact. We are the largest independent third-party insurance platform in China in terms of life and health insurance first year premiums, or FYP, distributed in 2020, according to iResearch. Through our medical crowdfunding, mutual aid platforms, and our insurance marketplace, we have built a massive social network of protection and support for people, raising awareness of insurance and ultimately providing insurance and healthcare service to consumers in China.

According to iResearch report, in 2019, the total healthcare service expenditures in China reached RMB7.0 trillion, among which RMB4.7 trillion was not covered by the social medical insurance, commercial insurance, or other supplemental medical protection. With Waterdrop being a trusted brand in China, we are well positioned to capture this market opportunity for insurance and healthcare service. According to a public survey conducted by iResearch, our insurance marketplace and medical crowdfunding platforms rank No. 1 in terms of brand awareness among independent third-party insurance distribution platforms and medical crowdfunding platforms respectively.

Insurance Marketplace. We address the health and life insurance needs with a variety of protection products. As of December 31, 2020, we collaborated with 62 insurance carriers to offer 200 health and life insurance products, majority of which are jointly designed with insurance carriers, leveraging our deep understanding of the consumer demand and actuarial capabilities. Our platform is designed to be mobile-first, digitally-native, and deeply connected with insurance carriers to ensure smooth and friendly user experience throughout the process from underwriting to claim services. In 2020, our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace generated over RMB14.4 billion of first year premiums, or FYP. Our cumulative paid policy count reached 30.7 million as of December 31, 2020.

Medical Crowdfunding. We enable those with significant medical cost need to seek help from caring hearts through technology. Patients or their relatives or friends can initiate crowdfunding campaigns on our platform and share campaign information through social network. As of December 31, 2020, over 340 million people donated over RMB37 billion in aggregate to over 1.7 million patients through our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding. According to iResearch, we ranked No. 1 among all medical crowdfunding platforms in China in terms of amount of fund raised in 2020.

Mutual Aid. We operated the Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform between May 2016 and March 2021. It enabled participants to help one another to ease his or her medical cost burden of over 100 types of critical illness. We have positioned this platform as a scenario for raising health protection awareness among participants who in turn may seek more comprehensive insurance coverage.

With the comprehensive coverage of our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace and Medical Crowdfunding platforms, we aim to supplement social medical insurance system and penetrate into the healthcare market in China to help more people access quality healthcare services.

We have achieved exponential growth since our inception. As of December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, the cumulative number of paying insurance consumers was approximately 1.7 million, 8.8 million and 19.2 million, while FYP generated through Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace achieved RMB972 million, RMB6,668 million, and RMB14,426 million in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. We primarily generate brokerage income from selling insurance policies underwritten by insurance carriers. Our revenues increased by 534.6% from RMB238.1 million in 2018 to RMB1,511.0 million in 2019, and further increased by 100.4% to RMB3,027.9 million (US$464.1 million) in 2020. We had a net loss of RMB209.2 million, RMB321.5 million and RMB663.9 million (US$101.7 million) in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Our Integrated Business Model

We operate an integrated business model that enhances user engagement, raises health protection awareness, and maximizes the lifetime value of our users.

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Notes:

1.	As of December 31, 2020

2.	According to iResearch, in terms of amount of fund raised in 2020

3.	According to iResearch, in terms of life and health insurance FYP distributed in 2020

Our user-centric platforms enhance user engagement through network effects. Based on comprehensive data accumulated across demographics, medical and health status, behaviors, and social activities, we derive unique consumer insights and develop deep understanding of consumer needs. Leveraging our data insights, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence, we have developed measures that enable effective consumer conversion and continuously provide customized insurance and healthcare solutions to users acquired from our crowdfunding and mutual aid platforms as well as through external marketing efforts. Our consumer conversion

capability enables us to capture the lifetime value of our user base through our insurance marketplace, drive long-term growth, and expand into healthcare service space.

Our Value Propositions

Value Proposition to Insurance Consumers

We help consumers become more informed in navigating their most important insurance coverage choices. We aspire to promote the value of insurance through the following:

•

Awareness and risk education: latent demand for insurance until needs of claims. Our medical crowdfunding service educates donors to appreciate and realize the need for insurance coverage in case of unforeseeable events.

•

Trust: strong reputation and brand. We have established ourselves as a trusted brand for insurance and medical cost support solutions, according to iResearch. Our trusted brand positions ourselves as the go-to platform for the mass population.

•

Choice and affordability: accessible to a wide variety of insurance plans with cost efficiency. With our unique suite of insurance products, we offer users choice and affordability. As we work with many insurance carriers, our consumers can easily tap into our insurance marketplace to choose the insurance plans that best fit their needs. We are able to offer products with favorable terms on our platform to broad consumer access. Moreover, to enhance our consumer journey, we are building up our healthcare ecosystem to include other health-related services.

•

Convenience and consumer experience: efficient insurance purchase process. Enabled by our online platforms and technology infrastructure, we offer smooth online purchase experience for our consumers.

Value Proposition to Medical Crowdfunding Users

We build a massive social network of medical expense support with cumulatively over 1.7 million patients seeking help and over 340 million donors from our medical crowdfunding platform, who benefit from the following:

•

Free access to medical fundraising service. Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding enables those with significant medical costs needs to seek help from caring hearts. We do not charge any fees for crowdfunding campaigns on Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding.

•

The large scale of the platform. We are the largest medical crowdfunding platform in China in terms of fund raised in 2020, according to iResearch. As a result, patients raising funds on Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding benefit from wider dissemination of campaigns.

•

Comprehensive risk management and anti-fraud measures. Donors on Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding are protected by comprehensive risk management and anti-fraud measures such as rigorous vetting, public disclosure to donor, and independent accounts at a custodian bank.

Value Proposition to Insurance Carriers

It often takes insurance carriers a lot of resources and time to develop high quality, scalable and efficient distribution channel and operation systems. Our cutting-edge technology infrastructure helps them in the following ways:

•

Consumer access: broad and immediate access to potential consumers. Our open platform, with our unique conversion capability, extensive offline and online scenarios, enables

insurance carriers to scale their insurance business swiftly without significant upfront investments in consumer acquisitions.

•

Optimized Underwriting: optimized and precise underwriting for different consumer segments. Our data insights, big-data analysis, and artificial intelligence tailored to health and life insurance enable insurance carriers to optimize the matching of their products with consumer needs, to better serve various segments of consumers.

•

Efficiency in distribution and operation: improved operational efficiency. By leveraging our distribution network, claim service system support, and consumer engagement, we improve insurance carriers’ operating efficiency.

Our Market Opportunity

China has a huge and fast-growing market for healthcare services. According to iResearch report, in 2019, the total healthcare service expenditures in China reached RMB7.0 trillion and is expected to reach RMB11.4 trillion by 2024, representing a CAGR of 10.2%. The increase in healthcare service expenditures is mainly driven by factors including the growing and aging population, increasing disposable income, rising demand for quality medical services, and the reform of the medical security system.

Currently the healthcare coverage in China is primarily paid by (1) social medical insurance provided by the Chinese government; (2) commercial insurance, and (3) medical crowdfunding and other social charities. Due to the relatively low awareness for health protection and under-penetrated insured population in China, compared to other developed markets such as the US and the United Kingdom, a significant protection gap exists.

China Total Healthcare Expenditure by Payment Methods (2019)

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Source: iResearch Report

1.	Total healthcare expenditure via commercial insurance claims

Our market opportunity is significant as the medical protection need in China is largely underserved amid growing demand for access to better healthcare by large population. In 2019, the estimated medical protection gap, which was the portion of healthcare expenditure not covered by the social medical insurance, commercial insurance or other supplementary protection, was RMB4.7 trillion. The substantial gap indicates strong growth potentials for commercial insurance

products, especially critical illness and injury, as well as general health and accident insurance products.

According to iResearch report, the size of the Chinese insurance market was the second largest in the world as measured by insurance premium in 2019. However, insurance penetration, defined as insurance premium over GDP, and insurance density, defined as insurance premium per capita, in China were still substantially lower than those in developed countries. According to iResearch report, the insurance penetration of China was 4.3% in 2019, compared to 11.4%, 10.3% and 9.0% in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, respectively; and insurance density of China was US$431 in 2019, compared to US$7,495, US$4,361 and US$3,621 in the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, respectively.

Driven by the substantial medical protection gap and rising awareness for protection, the Chinese insurance market is expected to reach RMB7.8 trillion of total premiums by 2024 with a CAGR of 12.9% from 2019, among which, life and health insurance will be the key growth driver. In 2024, total premiums of China’s life and health insurance are expected to reach RMB6.1 trillion, with a CAGR of 14.5%.

By distribution channels, third-party insurance brokers and agents play an increasingly important role in the life and health insurance market. With the increasing demand from consumers for the more suitable products, GWP distributed via the third-party insurance brokers and agents channel is expected to reach RMB794.2 billion in 2024 according to iResearch report, representing 13.0% of the total life and health insurance premium, and a CAGR of 59.7% from 2019.

In recent years, with the development of technology and changing consumer preference, the insurance industry has been continuously digitalized. According to iResearch report, in 2019, China’s life and health insurance premiums from online channels represented 6.0% of the total market, and in 2024, this ratio is expected to increase to 9.7%, representing a CAGR of 26.1%. Online independent third-party insurance platforms, like us, are closer to the end consumers. Our technology and data insights allows us to profile an accurate user portrait and deepen understanding of consumer behavior, improving the distribution efficiency via targeted product design and diversified product offering, creating a more satisfactory customer experience and hence strengthening customer loyalty and retention rate.

Our Strengths

We believe the following strengths contribute to our success and differentiate us from our competitors:

•

leading insurtech platform with trusted brand and superior growth;

•

innovative user acquisition and engagement model;

•

unique and comprehensive product offerings;

•

advanced technology and differentiated data insights; and

•

strong sense of mission and proven execution capabilities.

Our Strategies

We intend to accomplish our mission by pursuing the following growth strategies:

•

further expand user coverage and engagement to improve mindshare;

•

penetrate further into the insurance value chain with strategic partners;

•

invest in data analysis and technology infrastructure; and

•

deepen partnership with healthcare institutions to build up health ecosystem.

Summary of Risk Factors

An investment in our ADSs is subject to a number of risks, including risks related to our business and industry, risks related to our corporate structure, risks related to doing business in China and risks related to our ADSs and this offering. You should carefully consider all of the information in this prospectus before making an investment in our ADSs. The following list summarizes some, but not all, of these risks. Please read the information in the section entitled “Risk Factors” for a more thorough description of these and other risks.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

•

Our business and growth are significantly affected by the future prospects of third-party insurance brokerage and agency and medical crowdfunding industries, which are rapidly evolving;

•

Our limited operating history and evolving business model make it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter;

•

We face intense competition and could lose market share, which could adversely affect our results of operations;

•

We have a history of net losses and negative cash flows from operating activities, which may continue in the future;

•

We face uncertainties relating to the change of regulatory regime;

•

The administration, interpretation and enforcement of the regulations applicable to us are evolving and involve uncertainties. We may not be able to stay in constant compliance with the rapidly evolving regulations;

•

Any lack of requisite approvals, licenses or permits applicable to our business operation may have a material and adverse impact on our business and results of operations;

•

We may be subject to penalties against us for failure to manage our personnel engaging in insurance brokerage activities;

•

We face reputational, monetary, and legal risk in relation to our decision to discontinue our Waterdrop Mutual Aid business;

•

Our historical growth rate may not be indicative of our future performance and if we fail to effectively manage our growth, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected; and

•

Any harm to our brand or reputation may materially and adversely affect our business.

Risks Related to Our Corporate Structure

•

If the PRC government finds that the agreements that establish the structure for operating some of our operations in China do not comply with PRC regulations relating to the relevant industries, or if these regulations or the interpretation of existing regulations change in the future, we could be subject to severe penalties or be forced to relinquish our interests in those operations;

•

The contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their shareholders may not be as effective as direct ownership in providing operational control; and

•

Any failure by our VIEs or their shareholders to perform their obligations under our contractual arrangements with them would have a material and adverse effect on our business.

•

Our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Peng Shen, is subject to a potential lawsuit, and there is uncertainty as to the outcome of the claim and its impact on us.

Risks Related to Doing Business in China

•

Changes in China’s economic, political or social conditions or government policies could have a material adverse effect on our business and operations;

•

Uncertainties with respect to the PRC legal system could adversely affect us;

•

It may be difficult for overseas regulators to conduct investigation or collect evidence within China;

•

Our ADSs may be delisted under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act if the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, or the PCAOB, is unable to inspect auditors who are located in China. The delisting of our ADSs, or the threat of their being delisted, may materially and adversely affect the value of your investment. Additionally, the inability of the PCAOB to conduct inspections deprives our investors with the benefits of such inspections; and

•

Proceedings instituted by the SEC against PRC-based “big four” accounting firms, including our independent registered public accounting firm, could result in financial statements being determined to not be in compliance with the requirements of the Exchange Act.

Risks Related to Our ADSs and This Offering

•

The trading price of the ADSs is likely to be volatile, which could result in substantial losses to investors;

•

If securities or industry analysts cease to publish research or reports about our business, or if they adversely change their recommendations regarding the ADSs, the market price for the ADSs and trading volume could decline;

•

The voting rights of holders of ADSs are limited by the terms of the deposit agreement, and you may not be able to exercise your right to direct the voting of the underlying Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs.

Recent Development

We have achieved a solid business growth in the first quarter of 2021. The FYP generated through Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace reached RMB4,469 million for the first quarter of 2021, demonstrating a 14.4% increase from the fourth quarter of 2020 or a 42.7% increase from the same period of 2020.

Corporate History and Structure

We commenced our operation through Beijing Zongqing Xiangqian Technology Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Beijing Weizhong Culture Technology Co., Ltd.), or Zongqing Xiangqian, in

2016. We launched Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform in May 2016 and then launched Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform in July 2016. Beijing Shuidi Hubao Technology Co., Ltd., or Shuidi Hubao, was established in December 2016 to operate Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform. Beijing Shuidi Hulian Technology Co., Ltd., or Shuidi Hulian, was established in December 2016 to operate Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform. We acquired Shuidi Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Baoduoduo Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd.), or Shuidi Insurance Brokerage, in September 2016 to conduct insurance brokerage business and Tairui Insurance Agency Co., Ltd. in June 2020 to conduct insurance agency business and launched our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace in May 2017. Beijing Zhuiqiu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd., or Zhuiqiu Jizhi was established in February 2018, which acquired Tianjin Jingbin Internet Technology Co., Ltd. in October 2019 to invest in and incubate new businesses. Miaoyi Hulian (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. was established in July 2018 to operate general healthcare and pharmaceutical services.

In May 2018, Waterdrop Inc. was incorporated in the Cayman Islands as an offshore holding company to facilitate our offshore financing activities. Shortly following its incorporation, Waterdrop Inc. established a wholly-owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, Waterdrop Group HK Limited, or Waterdrop HK. In October 2018, Waterdrop HK established its wholly-owned subsidiary in China, Beijing Absolute Health Ltd., or Absolute Health. In July 2019, Absolute Health established its wholly-owned subsidiary, Shanghai Danzheng Health Technology Co., Ltd., or Shanghai Danzheng.

In November 2018, we gained control over Zongqing Xiangqian and Shuidi Hubao, through Absolute Health, by entering into a series of contractual arrangements with Zongqing Xiangqian and Shuidi Hubao and their shareholders. In July 2019, we further restructured and entered into a series of contractual arrangements with Shuidi Hulian and its shareholders and started consolidating Shuidi Hulian as a VIE. Prior to that, Shuidi Hulian was a subsidiary of Zongqing Xiangqian. In October 2019, we gained control over Zhuiqiu Jizhi, through Absolute Health, by entering into a series of contractual arrangements with Zhuiqiu Jizhi and its shareholders.

In light of our expanded business and prospect, the increased recognition of our brand, and the latest market development, we have decided to focus on our core businesses and offer enhanced protection to our users. Our Waterdrop Mutual Aid service historically served as a scenario for educating and familiarizing millions of users with the importance of insurance coverage. In March 2021, we ceased the operation of the Waterdrop Mutual Aid business, offering to migrate all mutual aid participants as insurance policyholders of our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace service. In connection with this change, we will voluntarily cover mutual aid participants’ medical expenses arising from medical conditions diagnosed by March 31, 2021 that would have been covered by the ceased mutual aid plan, subject to certain procedural requirements and eligibility criteria, and in addition offered a one-year complementary health insurance policy to each participant with a similar coverage as the participant’s original mutual aid plan. Please also see “Risk Factors — Risks Related to Our Business and Industry — We face reputational, monetary, and legal risks in relation to our discontinuation of the Waterdrop Mutual Aid business.” for risks associated with this decision.

The following diagram illustrates our corporate structure, including our principal subsidiaries, our VIEs and our VIEs’ principal subsidiaries, immediately upon the completion of this offering:

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Notes:

(1)	Mr. Peng Shen holds 100% of the equity interests in Beijing Shuidi Hubao Technology Co., Ltd.

(2)	Mr. Peng Shen and Mr. Wei Ran, an employee of the Company, each holds 99% and 1% of the equity interests in Beijing Shuidi Hulian Technology Co., Ltd.

(3)	Mr. Peng Shen and Mr. Guang Yang each holds 99% and 1% of the equity interests in Beijing Zhuiqiu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd.

(4)	Mr. Peng Shen and Mr. Wei Ran, an employee of the Company, each holds 99% and 1% of the equity interests in Beijing Zongqing Xiangqian Technology Co., Ltd.

Our Strong Commitments to ESG and CSR

We are a company with strong ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and CSR (corporate social responsibility) elements. We aspire to bring insurance and healthcare service to billions, and it is our core value to contribute to the general public and society with a positive impact.

Our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding cumulatively enabled over 1.7 million patients with a large number of critical illness campaigns. As of December 31, 2020, we helped raise over RMB37 billion cumulatively without charging fundraisers. Our Waterdrop Charity platform also connects people through social charity campaigns effectively, cumulatively raising RMB846 million as of December 31, 2020 in campaigns responding to natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.

We also apply our core principle of ESG and CSR to other aspects including governance, employee and environment. For governance, we established strict code of conduct with firm-wide social and environmental performance trainings, and proper and structured corporate governance framework. For employees, we highly value gender equality with female employees accounting for over 40% of our employees. We also provide supplementary health insurance to all of our employees. Our environmental efforts significantly promote digitization with substantially 100% digitization for policy contracts, saving approximately 140 million of pages each year.

Our contribution to the society is highly-recognized by many noticeable awards granted to us each year in connection with ESG and CSR matters. We will continue to dedicate to making social impact together with our business growth.

Implication of Being an Emerging Growth Company

As a company with less than US$1.07 billion in revenue for our last fiscal year, we qualify as an “emerging growth company” pursuant to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, as amended, or the JOBS Act. An emerging growth company may take advantage of specified reduced reporting and other requirements compared to those that are otherwise applicable generally to public companies. These provisions include exemption from the auditor attestation requirement under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in the assessment of the emerging growth company’s internal control over financial reporting. The JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company does not need to comply with any new or revised financial accounting standards until such date that a private company is otherwise required to comply with such new or revised accounting standards.

We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of (a) the last day of the fiscal year during which we have total annual gross revenues of at least US$1.07 billion; (b) the last day of our fiscal year following the fifth anniversary of the completion of this offering; (c) the date on which we have, during the preceding three-year period, issued more than US$1.0 billion in non-convertible debt; or (d) the date on which we are deemed to be a “large accelerated filer” under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, which would occur if the market value of the ADSs that are held by non-affiliates is at least US$700 million as of the last business day of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter. Once we cease to be an emerging growth company, we will not be entitled to the exemptions provided in the JOBS Act discussed above.

Corporate Information

Our principal executive offices are located at Block C, Wangjing Science and Technology Park, No. 2 Lize Zhonger Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Our telephone

number at this address is +86 10 5339-4997. Our registered office in the Cayman Islands is located at the Office of Maples Corporate Services Limited at PO Box 309, Ugland House, Grand Cayman, KY1-1104, Cayman Islands.

Investors should submit any inquiries to the address and telephone number of our principal executive offices. The information contained on our website is not a part of this prospectus. Our agent for service of process in the United States is Cogency Global Inc., located at 122 East 42nd Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10168.

Conventions that Apply to this Prospectus

Unless otherwise indicated or the context otherwise requires, references in this prospectus to:

•

“ADRs” are to the American depositary receipts which may evidence the ADSs;

•

“ADSs” are to the American depositary shares, each of which represents Class A ordinary shares;

•

“China” or the “PRC” are to the People’s Republic of China, excluding, for the purposes of this prospectus only, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan;

•

“Class A ordinary shares” refer to our Class A ordinary shares, par value US$0.000005 per share;

•

“Class B ordinary shares” refer to our Class B ordinary shares, par value US$0.000005 per share;

•

“FYP” are to first year premiums, which include all premiums that policyholders are obligated to pay for short-term policies and the premiums that policyholders are obligated to pay in the first policy year for long-term policies;

•

“GWP” are to gross written premiums, which include FYP and any premiums after the first policy year for long-term policies;

•

“ordinary shares” are to our Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares, par value US$0.000005 per share;

•

“our VIEs” are to Beijing Zhuiqiu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd., or Zhuiqiu Jizhi, Beijing Shuidi Hubao Technology Co., Ltd., or Shuidi Hubao, Beijing Shuidi Hulian Technology Co., Ltd., or Shuidi Hulian and Beijing Zongqing Xiangqian Technology Co., Ltd., or Zongqing Xiangqian;

•

“our WFOE” are to Beijing Absolute Health Ltd., or Absolute Health;

•

“RMB” and “Renminbi” are to the legal currency of China;

•

“first year premium retention rate” of a policy are to the rate of the premiums actually paid by the policyholder during the first policy year divided by that policy’s FYP, and references to our overall “first year premium retention rate” for a given year are to the FYP-weighted average first year premium retention rate of all insurance policies purchased on our platform during that year;

•

“US$,” “U.S. dollars,” “$,” and “dollars” are to the legal currency of the United States; and

•

“Waterdrop,” “we,” “us,” “our company” and “our” are to Waterdrop Inc., our Cayman Islands holding company and its subsidiaries, its consolidated variable interest entity and the subsidiaries of the consolidated variable interest entity.

Unless the context indicates otherwise, all information in this prospectus assumes no exercise by the underwriters of their over-allotment option. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from

Renminbi to U.S. dollars and from U.S. dollars to Renminbi in this prospectus are made at a rate of RMB6.5250 to US$1.00, the exchange rate in effect as of December 31, 2020 as set forth in the H.10 statistical release of The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. We make no representation that any Renminbi or U.S. dollar amounts could have been, or could be, converted into U.S. dollars or Renminbi, as the case may be, at any particular rate, or at all.

THE OFFERING

Offering price

We expect that the initial public offering price will be between US$ and US$ per ADS.

ADSs offered by us

ADSs (or ADSs if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full).

[ADSs offered by the selling shareholders

ADSs (or ADSs if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full).]

ADSs outstanding immediately after this offering

ADSs (or ADSs if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full)

Ordinary shares issued and outstanding immediately after this offering

A total of ordinary shares, comprised of Class A ordinary shares and 801,904,979 Class B ordinary shares (or ordinary shares if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full, comprised of Class A ordinary shares and 801,904,979 Class B ordinary shares). Class B ordinary shares issued and outstanding immediately after the completion of this offering will represent % of our total issued and outstanding shares and % of the then total voting power (or % of our total issued and outstanding shares and % of the then total voting power if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full). As of the date of this prospectus, options to purchase a total of 285,474,868 Class A ordinary shares are outstanding under the 2018 Share Incentive Plan, which are not included in the number of outstanding Class A ordinary shares. The weighted average exercise price for those options is US$0.04 per Class A ordinary share.

The ADSs

Each ADS represents Class A ordinary shares, par value US$0.000005 per share. The Class A ordinary shares represented by the ADSs held by public shareholders immediately after this offering will represent % of all the ordinary shares issued and outstanding immediately after this offering.

The depositary will hold Class A ordinary shares underlying your ADSs. You will have rights as provided in the deposit agreement among us, the depositary and holders and beneficial owners of ADSs from time to time.

We do not expect to pay dividends in the foreseeable future. If, however, we declare dividends on our Class A ordinary shares, the depositary will pay you the cash dividends and other distributions it receives on our Class A ordinary shares

after deducting its fees and expenses in accordance with the terms set forth in the deposit agreement.

You may surrender your ADSs to the depositary in exchange for Class A ordinary shares. The depositary will charge you fees for any exchange.

We may amend or terminate the deposit agreement without your consent. If you continue to hold your ADSs after an amendment to the deposit agreement, you agree to be bound by the deposit agreement as amended.

To better understand the terms of the ADSs, you should carefully read the “Description of American Depositary Shares” section of this prospectus. You should also read the deposit agreement, which is filed as an exhibit to the registration statement that includes this prospectus.

Over-allotment option

We [and the selling shareholders] have granted the underwriters an option, exercisable within 30 days from the date of this prospectus, to purchase up to an aggregate of additional ADSs.

Use of proceeds

We expect that we will receive net proceeds of approximately US$ million from this offering or approximately US$ million if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full, assuming an initial public offering price of US$ per ADS, which is the midpoint of the estimated range of the initial public offering price, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering to enhance and expand our operation in healthcare service and insurance business, for research and development and general corporate purposes. See “Use of Proceeds” for more information.

[We will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of ADSs by the selling shareholders.]

Lock-up

[We, our directors, executive officers, and all of our existing shareholders] have agreed with the underwriters, subject to certain exceptions, not to sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of any ADSs, ordinary shares or similar securities for a period of 180 days after the date of this prospectus. See “Shares Eligible for Future Sale” and “Underwriting” for more information.

[Directed Share Program

At our request, the underwriters have reserved for sale, at the initial public offering price, up to an aggregate of ADSs offered in this offering to some of our directors, officers, employees, business associates and related other persons associated with us through a directed share program.]

Listing

We have applied to have the ADSs listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WDH.” The ADSs and our ordinary shares will not be listed on any other stock exchange or traded on any automated quotation system.

Payment and settlement

The underwriters expect to deliver the ADSs against payment therefor through the facilities of The Depository Trust Company on , 2021.

Depositary

Citibank, N.A.

Summary Consolidated Financial Data

The following consolidated statements of comprehensive loss for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, consolidated balance sheets data as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, and consolidated statements of cash flow data for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, have been derived from our audited consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our consolidated financial statements are prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. You should read this Selected Consolidated Financial Data section together with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of results expected for future periods.

The following table sets forth a summary of our consolidated statements of comprehensive loss for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020.


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands, except for share and per share data)
Operating revenue, net		238,149			1,510,965			3,027,948			464,053
Operating costs and expenses
Operating costs		(45,932	)		(291,310	)		(742,258	)		(113,755	)
Sales and marketing expenses		(184,943	)		(1,056,494	)		(2,130,535	)		(326,519	)
General and administrative expenses		(126,242	)		(142,995	)		(407,171	)		(62,402	)
Research and development expenses		(69,196	)		(214,646	)		(244,230	)		(37,430	)

Total operating costs and expenses		(426,313	)		(1,705,445	)		(3,524,194	)		(540,106	)

Operating loss		(188,164	)		(194,480	)		(496,246	)		(76,053	)

Other income/(expenses)
Interest income		2,428			10,533			26,515			4,064
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			(150,685	)		(23,093	)
Foreign currency exchange gain/(loss)		66			4,152			(1,335	)		(205	)
Others, net		(1,967	)		817			8,052			1,234

Loss before income tax, and share of results of equity method investee		(187,637	)		(178,978	)		(613,699	)		(94,053	)

Income tax expense		(21,503	)		(142,528	)		(50,155	)		(7,687	)
Share of results of equity method investee		(54	)		(29	)		(15	)		(2	)

Net loss attributable to Waterdrop Inc.		(209,194	)		(321,535	)		(663,869	)		(101,742	)

Deemed dividend on modification on preferred shares		—			—			(67,975	)		(10,418	)
Deemed dividend upon issuance of warrants		—			—			(90,268	)		(13,834	)
Preferred shares redemption value accretion		(22,230	)		(136,839	)		(285,668	)		(43,781	)

Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders		(231,424	)		(458,374	)		(1,107,780	)		(169,755	)

Weighted average number of ordinary shares used in computing net loss per share
Basic and diluted		839,572,645			1,203,526,000			1,174,583,516			1,174,583,516
Net loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders
Basic and diluted		(0.28	)		(0.38	)		(0.94	)		(0.14	)

The following table sets forth unaudited pro forma basic and diluted net loss per ordinary share which reflects the effect of the conversion of convertible redeemable preferred shares, as if the conversion occurred as of January 1, 2020 or the original date of issuance, if later.


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018		2019		2020
	RMB		RMB		RMB			US$
Pro forma weighted average number of ordinary shares used in computing net loss per share
Basic and diluted		—		—		3,215,144,213			3,215,144,213
Pro forma net loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders
Basic and diluted		—		—		(0.23	)		(0.04	)

The following table presents our summary consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2019 and 2020.


	As of December 31,
	2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Summary Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:
Cash and cash equivalents		964,476			1,061,962			162,753
Restricted cash		329,676			261,387			40,059
Short-term investments		60,278			1,193,160			182,860
Accounts receivable		252,499			539,791			82,727
Contract assets		617,688			848,550			130,046
Total assets		2,555,906			4,705,055			721,082
Insurance premium payables⁽¹⁾		320,237			607,326			93,077
Deferred revenue⁽²⁾		21,670			22,017			3,374
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities⁽³⁾		496,530			595,606			91,281
Deferred tax liabilities⁽⁴⁾		167,601			225,745			34,597
Total liabilities		1,054,394			1,524,743			233,678
Total mezzanine equity		2,207,831			4,837,336			741,354
Total shareholders’ deficit		(706,319	)		(1,657,024	)		(253,950	)

Notes:

(1)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB320.2 million and RMB607.3 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

(2)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB21.7 million and RMB22.0 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

(3)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB428.8 million and RMB447.2 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

(4)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB167.2 million and RMB225.3 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

The following table sets forth our summary consolidated cash flow data for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020.


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Summary Consolidated Cash Flow Data:
Net cash used in operating activities		(211,029	)		(532,895	)		(777,108	)		(119,097	)
Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities		31,988			(45,955	)		(1,217,701	)		(186,621	)
Net cash provided by financing activities		362,669			1,472,775			2,050,890			314,313
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents		(1,973	)		27,342			(26,884	)		(4,120	)

Net increase in cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash		181,655			921,267			29,197			4,475
Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of year		191,230			372,885			1,294,152			198,337

Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of year		372,885			1,294,152			1,323,349			202,812

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We use two non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA, in evaluating our operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. Adjusted net loss represents net loss excluding share-based compensation expense, foreign currency exchange gain or losses, fair value change of warrant and share of results of equity method investee. Such adjustments have no impact on income tax. Adjusted EBITDA represents adjusted net loss excluding depreciation interest income and income tax expense.

We present the non-GAAP financial measures because they are used by our management to evaluate our operating performance and formulate business plans. Adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA enable our management to assess our operating results without considering the impact of share-based compensation expense, foreign currency exchange gain or losses, fair value change of warrant, share of results of equity method investee, depreciation interest income and income tax expense. We believe that adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA help identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be distorted by the effect of certain expenses that are included in net loss. We also believe that the use of the non-GAAP measures facilitate investors’ assessment of our operating performance. We believe that adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA provide useful information about our operating results, enhance the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects and allow for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by our management in its financial and operational decision making.

Adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA should not be considered in isolation or construed as an alternative to net loss or any other measure of performance or as an indicator of our operating performance. Investors are encouraged to review our historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA presented here may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. Other companies may calculate similarly titled measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures to our data. We encourage investors and others to review our financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure.

The table below sets forth a reconciliation of our net loss to adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA for the years indicated:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Net loss		(209,194	)		(321,535	)		(663,869	)		(101,742	)
Add:
Share-based compensation expense		47,812			27,996			227,828			34,917
Foreign currency exchange (gain)/loss		(66	)		(4,152	)		1,335			205
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			150,685			23,093
Share of results of equity method investee		54			29			15			2

Adjusted net loss		(161,394	)		(297,662	)		(284,006	)		(43,525	)
Depreciation and amortization		1,983			6,687			13,065			2,003
Interest income		(2,428	)		(10,533	)		(26,515	)		(4,064	)
Income tax expense		21,503			142,528			50,155			7,687

Adjusted EBITDA		(140,336	)		(158,980	)		(247,301	)		(37,899	)

RISK FACTORS

Investing in our ADSs involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the following risks and uncertainties and all other information contained in this prospectus before investing in our ADSs. Our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects could also be harmed by risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe are material. If any of the risks actually occur, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be adversely affected. In that event, the market price of our ADSs could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

Our business and growth are significantly affected by the future prospects of third-party insurance brokerage and agency and medical crowdfunding industries, which are rapidly evolving.

We operate in two rapidly evolving industries. Our business and growth are highly dependent on the future growth and proliferation of third-party insurance brokerage and agency and medical crowdfunding industries in China, which could be affected by many factors beyond our control.

Firstly, third-party insurance brokerage and agency industry in China could be affected by, from the insurance carrier side, the close integration with and improvements in online infrastructure and technology, efficient access to insurance consumers, consumer base and insights, consumer acquisition costs and the separation of insurance product design and sales; and from the consumer side, by the continued formation of consumers’ online insurance policy purchasing habits, the selection, price and popularity of insurance products offered by insurance carriers, the demand for convenience, the reliability and security of third-party insurance brokerage and agency platforms and online insurance policy buying or claim settlement experience. In addition, third-party insurance brokerage and agency industry may also be affected by the overall prosperity of health and life insurance industry.

Secondly, the medical crowdfunding industry in China could be affected by the medical cost borne by patients, development of self-discipline conventions driven by industry leaders, the coverage of China’s national social medical insurance provided by the Chinese government and regulatory policies.

Our operation could also be significantly affected by the development of the healthcare industry, an adjacent industry to third-party insurance brokerage and agency and medical crowdfunding industries, in China. Major internet companies or traditional online healthcare service providers in China may start to offer or strengthen their offerings of competing products and services in the healthcare industry, utilizing their large user base and cross-selling advantages. As a result, our business and growth potential could be materially and adversely affected.

Our limited operating history and evolving business model make it difficult to evaluate our business and future prospects and the risks and challenges we may encounter.

We commenced our operation in 2016. Our evaluations of the business and prediction about our future performance may not be as accurate as they would be if we had a longer operating history. In the event that actual results differ from our expectation or we adjust our estimates in future periods, the investors’ perceptions of our business and future prospects could change materially, which may adversely affect our ADS price.

We have been actively exploring boundaries and synergy values of our business and expanding our services. We started with the mutual aid plan services in May 2016, under which we generated management fee income as an operator of the mutual aid plans, and then launched

Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding in July 2016. We began to distribute insurance products underwritten by insurance carriers in our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace in May 2017, through which we earn brokerage income. We may also enter into other healthcare related industries under our mission to bring insurance and healthcare service to billions through technology. Our constantly evolving business model makes it difficult to evaluate the risks and challenges we may encounter.

We face intense competition and could lose market share, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

The third-party insurance brokerage and agency industry in China is intensely competitive. Our current or potential competitors include (i) online third-party brokers and agents such as Ant Group and WeSure; and (ii) offline third-party brokers and agents such as Fanhua, Everpro and Datong. New competitors may emerge at any time. We also face competition from traditional insurance intermediaries such as bancassurance, tied agency channel of insurance carriers and direct sales channel of insurance carriers.

We currently mainly compete with Qingsong Crowdfunding for medical crowdfunding. Additional players may also enter into this rapidly evolving space.

Existing or potential competitors may have substantially greater brand recognition and possess more financial, marketing and research resources than we do. Our competitors may introduce platforms with more attractive products, content and features, or services or solutions with competitive pricing or enhanced performance that we cannot match. Some of our competitors may have more resources to develop or acquire new technologies and react quicker to changing requirements of consumers.

In addition, for the online insurance marketplace industry we operate in, our target insurance policy purchasers, PRC residents with potential insurance needs, may seek insurance products and services in well-equipped and developed neighboring insurance markets. We may fail to compete effectively with our competitors and industry participants in neighboring insurance markets.

We have a history of net losses and negative cash flows from operating activities, which may continue in the future.

We have incurred net losses and negative cash flows from operating activities each year since our inception and we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability or positive cash flow in the future. We incurred net losses of RMB209.2 million, RMB321.5 million and RMB663.9 million (US$101.7 million) in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. Net cash used in our operating activities was RMB211.0 million, RMB532.9 million and RMB777.1 million (US$119.1 million) in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

We anticipate that our operating costs and expenses will increase in the foreseeable future as we continue to grow our business, acquire new users, invest and innovate in our technology infrastructure and further develop our product and service offering and increase brand recognition. Any of these efforts may incur significant capital investment and recurring costs, have different revenue and cost structures, and take time to achieve profitability. With continuing net loss and negative cash flows from operating activities, we may have to finance ourselves with equity or debt financing, which may not be available at price term favorable to us or at all.

We face uncertainties relating to the change of regulatory regime.

We operate in a highly regulated industry in China, and the regulatory regime continues to evolve. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, or the CBIRC, has extensive authority to supervise and regulate the insurance industry in China. Since the online insurance industry in China is evolving rapidly, the CBIRC has been enhancing its supervision over this industry in recent years, and new laws, regulations and regulatory requirements have been

promulgated and implemented from time to time. We face challenges brought by these new laws, regulations and regulatory requirements, as well as significant uncertainties in the interpretation and application thereof. Moreover, there exist uncertainties as to how the regulatory environment might change.

On December 14, 2020, the CBIRC published the Regulatory Measures for Online Insurance Business, or the Regulatory Measures, which became effective on February 1, 2021. Shuidi Insurance Brokerage conducts online insurance brokerage business in the PRC and is subject to the Regulatory Measures. The Regulatory Measures significantly changes regulatory regime for online insurance business in various aspects. For example, the Regulatory Measures requires insurance institutions (including insurance carriers and insurance intermediary service providers, such as insurance brokerage companies and insurance agency companies) to (i) establish internal policies with regard to personnel management, customer information protection and internal control, (ii) enhance compliance management of promotional materials and marketing activities, (iii) meet certain detailed requirements for sales activities, and (iv) protect the information right of consumers by making appropriate disclosure. In particular, the Regulatory Measures requires online insurance transactions being conducted through online interfaces operated by insurance institutions only, and prohibits insurance institutions to set default option for customer and impose any restriction on the cancellation of automatic payment to affect customer’s choice during the sales process of insurance products. The Regulatory Measures prohibits entities which are not insurance institutions from conducting insurance businesses, such as consultation of insurance products, comparison of insurance products, trial calculation of insurance premiums, quotation and comparison of quotations, drafting insurance plans for policyholders, processing insurance application formalities and premium collection. The Regulatory Measures also does not explicitly allow the entities which are not insurance institutions to conduct marketing activities for online insurance products. We currently engage third party user acquisition channels to attract consumers for the insurance products offered on our platform. If our cooperation with such user acquisition channels is deemed to be in violation of the Regulatory Measures, we may be required to modify our business practice, which may result in reduction in our attraction to consumers. In addition, the Regulatory Measures sets a higher standard for insurance institutions and online industry participants to improve IT infrastructure and cybersecurity protection. In particular, insurance institutions engaged in online insurance products sales business shall have IT systems that are certified as Safety Level III Computer Information Systems or above level. It might be costly for us to stay in compliance with the heightened requirements and standards in the Regulatory Measures. The Regulatory Measures sets out a ramp-up process allowing market participants to achieve full compliance in phases until February 1, 2022; we, however, cannot assure you that we can timely adjust our current business operations to achieve and maintain full compliance. For details of the Regulatory Measures, see “Regulations — Regulations on Internet Insurance Business.”

The regulatory framework in China’s insurance industry is evolving and undergoing significant changes. Further development of regulations applicable to us may result in additional restrictions on our business operations. We may have to adjust our business practice and operations to comply with the continuously changing regulatory requirements. For example, in January 2021, the CBIRC published the draft Circular on Further Regulating Certain Issues on Internet Life Insurance Business, or the Draft Circular, for comment among insurance industry participants. The Draft Circular requires that each installment of premium of certain insurance products less than one year term, such as accident insurance and health insurance shall be equal. We provide our consumers the option of monthly payments and the first month payment of premium of certain insurance products is typically lower than subsequent installments. We may be required to change such payment regime to comply with the Draft Circular, if the Draft Circular is enacted. The adjustment of such payment regime may result in reduction in our attraction to consumers. The Draft Circular also provides the upper limit for the predetermined fee rate and average supplemental fee rate for certain

insurance products, which may affect the amount of insurance brokerage commission we charge on the relevant insurance products and adversely affect our financial condition. In addition, pursuant to the Draft Circular, insurance intermediary institutions that conduct the sales of ordinary life insurance products and annuity and pension insurance products longer than ten-year term shall meet certain conditions, including, among others, having not received any administrative penalty or regulatory actions imposed or taken by any governmental authorities over the last twelve months. Shuidi Insurance Brokerage was subject to an administrative penalty imposed by the local counterpart of the CBIRC in July 2020 due to failure to provide legally required disclosure on our platform to our consumers, and inaccurate or incomplete information of insurance products on our platform in our past practice. We may be restricted to the sales of such insurance products, if the Draft Circular is enacted. As of the date of this prospectus, the Draft Circular is still pending approval and has not come into effect. It remains uncertain when and how the Draft Circular would come into effect, and whether and how CBIRC would promulgate relevant rules related to us. The attention of our management team could be diverted to these efforts to cope with an evolving regulatory or competitive environment. Meanwhile, staying compliant with the restriction may result in limitation to our business scope, limitation to our product and service offerings, and reduction in our attraction to consumers. As a result, our business and results of operations might be materially and adversely affected.

Furthermore, our medical crowdfunding business currently has no specific governing laws and regulations as such industries are relatively nascent and are at their early stages of development, and we expect to experience strengthened regulatory environment along with rapid industry evolution. Regulatory or administrative authorities may impose new requirements relating to, among other things, new and additional licenses, permits and approvals or governance or ownership structures on us for operating medical crowdfunding business in the future. For example, if the competent PRC authorities promulgate new laws or regulations in future which require approvals, licenses or permits to operate our medical crowdfunding business, we may not be able to obtain the required approvals, licenses or permits in a timely manner, or at all. In addition, for the funds contributed by donors in our medical crowdfunding platform, we have entered into agreements with a commercial bank, under which the bank provides fund custodian services. If regulatory authorities in China promulgate new laws or regulations regulating online crowdfunding business, including but not limited to the custodian mechanism, in the future, we may need to amend the relevant agreements or modify our current business practices to comply with new regulatory requirements, the process of which could be costly and uncertain, or even discontinue the relevant business. If any of the foregoing or other changes of the applicable PRC laws and regulations that have any adverse impact on our businesses was to occur, our business and financial condition might be materially and adversely affected.

Our business is subject to governmental supervision and regulation by various PRC governmental authorities, and regulatory bodies may view matters or interpret laws and regulations differently than they have in the past or in a manner adverse to our business. The CBIRC and its local counterparts have wide discretion in administration, interpretation and enforcement of these laws, regulations and regulatory requirements, as well as the authority to impose regulatory sanctions on industry participants. In certain circumstances it may be difficult to determine which actions or omissions may be deemed to be in violation of applicable laws, regulations or regulatory requirements. For example, historically, we have offered certain insurance consumers free insurance coverage upgrades as part of our sales and marketing activities and the outreaching and conversation by our customer service personnel with such users were considered as conducting telesales of insurance products business by the local regulatory authorities. Pursuant to the relevant

PRC laws, insurance companies can operate telesales of insurance products business through establishing call centers or collaborating with insurance agencies. We have implemented various measures in response to the alleged non-compliance. In particular, we examined our practice and set up strict internal control policies to deter our customer service personnel misconduct, including among others, prohibiting our customer service personnel from active calling out without the prior consent of users. However, we cannot assure you that our customer service personnel will not engage in any misconduct, and we are uncertain as to whether our rectification measures will be sufficient to ensure full compliance with the regulatory requirements due to the lack of detailed interpretation and implementation of these requirements. Furthermore, due to the lack of further interpretations, the exact definition and scope of “conducting telesales of insurance products business” under the current regulatory regime is unclear. It is uncertain whether we would be deemed to operate telesales of insurance products business because of the conversation by our customer service personnel. In addition, the current PRC laws and regulations remain unclear as to whether our customer service personnel are required to complete the qualification registration as insurance brokerage practitioners in accordance with the relevant PRC laws and regulations. Given the evolving regulatory environment of the insurance industry, we cannot assure you that we will not be required in the future by the relevant governmental authorities to obtain approval or license to continue our customer services or complete qualification registration for our customer service personnel in a timely manner. If we fail to comply with these laws and regulations, we could be subject to penalties and operational disruption and our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Moreover, Chinese regulatory authorities may conduct various reviews and inspections on our business operations from time to time. If any non-compliance incidents in our business operation are identified, we may be required to take certain rectification measures in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, or we may be subject to other regulatory actions such as administrative penalties. For example, we were identified non-compliance incidents with respect to conducting insurance business in areas where we do not have branches. We are in the process of rectifying relevant non-compliance incidents that we are aware of under the unclear and changing regulatory environment. However, we cannot assure you that we will be able to fully rectify all non-compliance incidents in a timely manner or fully satisfy the regulatory requirements, or we will not be subject to any future regulatory reviews and inspections where other non-compliance incidents might be identified, which might materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

In addition, we have been expanding our businesses and may enter into new business areas as we see fit. Due to the complexities and uncertainties of PRC laws and regulations governing the new industries we are going to operate our business in, we cannot assure you that all our new business operations in the future will be in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations applicable to the new industries.

Any lack of requisite approvals, licenses or permits applicable to our business operation may have a material and adverse impact on our business and results of operations.

Our business is subject to regulation, and we are required to obtain applicable licenses, permits and approvals from different PRC regulatory authorities in order to conduct or expand our business, including, but not limited to, Insurance Brokerage License, Insurance Agency Business License, license for provision of internet information services, or ICP License, Internet Pharmaceutical Information Service Qualification Certificate and Pharmaceutical Business License. We have obtained and maintained all licenses and permits material to our business as described above as required by the PRC regulatory authorities. We cannot assure you that we will be able to maintain existing licenses and permits or renew any of them when their current term expires. If we

are unable to maintain one or more of the current licenses and permits, or obtain such renewals, the operations and prospects of our business could be materially disrupted. Furthermore, if the relevant governmental authorities consider that we were operating without the proper approvals, licenses or permits, or the relevant governmental authorities promulgate new laws and regulations that require additional approvals or licenses or impose additional restrictions on the operation of any part of our business and we are not able to obtain such approvals, licenses or permits or adjust our business model in a timely manner, it has the power, among other things, to levy fines, confiscate our income, revoke our business licenses, and require us to discontinue our relevant business. Any of these actions by the relevant governmental authorities may have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

We may be subject to penalties against us for failure to manage our personnel engaging in insurance brokerage activities.

The practice of insurance intermediary personnel is strictly regulated under the PRC laws and regulations. Personnel who engage in insurance brokerage activities are required to be registered with the insurance intermediary regulatory information system of the CBIRC. Insurance brokerage companies that engage in unregistered personnel may be subject to warnings, fines and other penalties by regulatory authorities. In addition, on March 12, 2019, the CBIRC issued the Notice for Professional Insurance Intermediaries to Conduct the Verification of Insurance Practitioners’ Practice Registration, requiring that all insurance intermediary institutions to complete the registration for their personnel with the local branches where such personnel are practicing and to complete self-check and verification of the registration of all of the registered personnel by July 31, 2019. Some of our insurance brokerage personnel were found being registered with Shuidi Insurance Brokerage rather than its branches where such personnel were practicing. We cannot assure you that we will be able to complete the registration for all of our insurance brokerage personnel in a timely manner due to the increasing number of our insurance brokerage personnel, or that the relevant regulatory authorities would not retrospectively find deficiency in the registration of these personnel and subject us to penalties. Furthermore, the personnel can only practice within the scope specified by the insurance brokerage company that he/she is registered with. We have implemented policies to ensure our insurance brokerage personnel to practice in compliance with the relevant PRC regulations. Nevertheless, there can be no assurance that all of such personnel will not practice outside the scope specified by us, or that such personnel will strictly abide by these policies or take their responsibilities under the applicable laws and regulations in connection with insurance brokerage services, which may subject to fines and other administrative proceedings.

We face reputational, monetary, and legal risks in relation to our discontinuation of the Waterdrop Mutual Aid business.

In March 2021, we ceased the operation of our Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform in order to focus on our core businesses and offer enhanced protection to our users. We have offered to migrate all mutual aid participants as insurance policyholders of our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace service. In connection with this change, we will voluntarily cover mutual aid participants’ medical expenses arising from medical conditions diagnosed by March 31, 2021 that would have been covered by the ceased mutual aid plan, subject to certain procedural requirements and eligibility criteria, and in addition offered a one-year complementary health insurance policy to each participant with a similar coverage as the participant’s original mutual aid plan. Despite our good intention, our mutual aid participants or general public may view our action as adversely affecting the actual or expected interests of mutual aid participants, which may in turn harm our reputation. In the worst scenario, participants may choose to bring complaints and lawsuits against us. Although we were contractually permitted to terminate the mutual aid plans any time in our discretion, lawsuits may nevertheless be time consuming and costly, and distract our management’s attention.

We have experienced rapid growth since our inception, particularly in terms of the number of insurance consumers, the FYP generated through us, and cumulative fund we help patients raise. However, there is no assurance that we will be able to maintain our historical growth rates in future periods. If our growth rates slow or decline, investors’ perceptions of our business and prospects may be adversely affected and the market price of our ADSs could decline.

We cannot assure you that we will be able to effectively manage the future growth of our rapidly evolving business. We started with the mutual aid plan services in May 2016, under which we generate management fee income as an operator of the mutual aid plans, and then launched Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding in July 2016. We began to distribute insurance products underwritten by insurance carriers in our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace in May 2017, through which we earn brokerage income, and we expect to continue to experience business growth and expansion in the future. We plan to further expand user coverage and engagement to improve mindshare, penetrate further into the insurance value chain with strategic partners, invest in data analysis and technology infrastructure and deepen partnership with medical institutions to build up health ecosystem. We cannot assure you that our growth initiatives will succeed.

Any harm to our brand or reputation may materially and adversely affect our business.

The brand recognition and reputation of our “Waterdrop” brand and the successful maintenance and enhancement of our brand and reputation have contributed and will continue to contribute significantly to our success and growth.

Any negative perception and publicity, whether or not justified, such as complaints and accidents in relation to user experience or quality of services, including inappropriate behavior of the crowdfunding consultants and sales personnel, could tarnish our reputation and reduce the value of our brand. Further, our competitors may fabricate complaints or negative publicity about us for the purpose of vicious competition. With the increased use of social network, adverse publicity can be disseminated quickly and broadly, making it increasingly difficult for us to respond and mitigate effectively.

We are also subject to negative publicity regarding our platform participants, whose activities are out of our control. Negative public perception on the insurance products by insurance carriers on our platform or that insurance carriers on our platform do not provide satisfactory customer services, even if factually incorrect or based on isolated incidents, could undermine the trust and credibility we have established and have a negative impact on our ability to attract new users or retain our current users.

Our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace business may be negatively affected if the insurance carriers on our platform do not continue their relationship with us or if their operations fail.

Our relationship with insurance carriers is crucial to our success. We generate a substantial portion of our revenues from commission fees paid by insurance carriers. Certain insurance carriers have accounted for a significant portion of our revenues in the past. Anxin Insurance accounted for 43.4%, 44.2% and 19.9% of our total operating revenue in 2018 and 2019 and 2020, respectively. ZhongAn Insurance accounted for 21.7% of our total operating revenue in 2018 and China Taiping Insurance accounted for 21.9% and 24.9% of our total operating revenue in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Hongkang Life Insurance accounted for 11.1% of our total operating revenue in 2020. If one or more of them fail to make payments to us, the settlement of our accounts receivable and financial position would be materially and adversely affected. While we continually seek to diversify insurance carriers on our platform, there can be no assurance that the concentration will decrease.

Our arrangements with insurance carriers are typically not exclusive, and they may have similar arrangements with our competitors. If insurance carriers are dissatisfied with our services and solutions or find us ineffective in enhancing their profitability, they may terminate their relationships with us. Moreover, insurance carriers we work with may develop their own technology capabilities to serve policy holders online.

Furthermore, if insurance carriers or the reinsurance companies they partner with fail to properly fulfill their obligations as insurers under the insurance policies sold on our platform, our users may lose faith in our platform.

A significant portion of the FYP generated through us is contributed by a limited number of insurance products. If we cannot continue to offer these insurance products on our platform for any reason or the popularity of these products declines, our brokerage income may decrease.

A significant portion of the FYP generated through us is from a limited number of popular insurance products, primarily our health and life insurance products. We believe the concentration was partially due to the comprehensive protection coverage with reasonable policy terms which makes these insurance products more attractive than others. Although we plan to continue diversifying our product offerings, launch more tailor-made insurance products, expand our user base and generate brokerage income from a wider variety of insurance products, we cannot guarantee you that we will be able to succeed, and that such concentration will decrease. If we cannot continue to offer these popular insurance products for any reason or the popularity of these products decline, our brokerage income may decrease.

Our revenue and profitability might be adversely impacted if the commission level of our insurance brokerage service declines.

We are engaged in the insurance brokerage business and derive revenues primarily from commission fees paid by the insurance carriers whose insurance policies our consumers purchase. The commission fee rates are negotiated between insurance carriers and us, and are based on the premiums that the insurance products charge. Commission fee rates and premiums can change based on the prevailing economic, regulatory, taxation and competitive factors that affect insurance carriers. These factors, which are beyond our control, include the capacity of insurance carriers to place new business, profits of insurance carriers, consumer demand for insurance products, the availability of comparable products from other insurance carriers at lower costs, and the availability of alternative insurance products, such as government benefits and self-insurance plans, to consumers. In addition, premium rates for certain insurance products are tightly regulated by the CBIRC. Because we do not determine, and cannot predict, the timing or extent of premium or commission fee rate changes, we cannot predict the effect any of these changes may have on our operations. Any decrease in premiums or commission fee rates may significantly affect our profitability.

We may not be successful in increasing the proportion of long-term health and life insurance products.

As the consumers’ awareness for health protection and insurance products in China were still substantially lower than in developed countries, many insurance consumers on our platform start with purchases of short-term protection products. We began to offer long-term health and life insurance products in the end of 2018, and we have been endeavoring to raise consumer awareness, and demonstrate the value and importance of long-term health and life insurance, through our interactions with them. Long-term health and life insurance products accounted for 17.4% of the FYP generated through us in 2020, and the FYP per consumer increased from RMB590.1 in 2018 to RMB1,143.2 in 2020. The FYP per policy increased from RMB442.6 in 2018 to RMB819.1 in 2020. The increasing sales of long-term health and life insurance products is beneficial

to our business as it brings us a steady cash flow during the whole insurance period. If we fail to migrate our insurance consumers to long-term health and life insurance products, our results of operation may be adversely affected.

If we fail to bring in new patients to our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.

We mainly rely on our offline crowdfunding consultants to bring in new patients and rely on social network link sharing practice to reach potential donors. The success of our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform largely depends on our ability to bring in new patients to our platforms. We must continue to help patients efficiently launch crowdfunding campaigns and withdraw the funds raised for medical treatments. The number of donors and amount of fund raised largely depend on the wide dissemination starting from the patients’ relatives, friends and acquaintances, and expansion of outreach through the social network, which may be beyond our control. If we fail to bring in new patients to our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform, our crowdfunding business will suffer, which may lead to less traffic direction to our insurance marketplace.

Our offline crowdfunding consultancy at hospitals by crowdfunding consultants may be restricted or banned.

The operation of our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform largely relies on offline crowdfunding consultancy at hospitals by crowdfunding consultants. Our crowdfunding consultants play an important role in discovering the patients in need of medical funds, helping patients fill in personal information and upload medical documentation and verification of the patients’ medical records and financial status. If our relationship with hospitals worsens, the crowdfunding consultants may be banned from entering the hospitals or patients’ wards, which may materially affect our offline crowdfunding consultancy of our crowdfunding business.

If we fail to bring in and retain new consumers and increase engagement of existing users on our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace platform, our business and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Our future growth depends on our ability to continue to bring in and retain consumers and increase engagement of existing consumers on our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace platform. We must stay abreast of emerging user preferences and product trends that will appeal to existing and potential participants and consumers. Our platforms make personalized recommendations of and insurance products to users based on their needs, and offer a comprehensive suite of services to ensure a smooth and efficient experience. For users on our insurance marketplace, we also develop insurance products in cooperation with insurance carriers to meet their evolving needs. Our ability to provide these products and services is dependent on our expertise and our data analytical capabilities. However, there is no assurance that the products and services that we offer will cater to the needs of potential or existing users, sustain for a period of time that we expect them to, or be welcomed or accepted by the market at all. If users cannot find their desired insurance products on our platform at attractive prices and terms, or find their experience with us dissatisfactory, they may lose trust in us, terminate their memberships, surrender their existing policies and turn to other platforms, which in turn may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Failure to deal effectively with any fraud perpetrated on our platforms could harm our business and reputation.

We face risks with respect to fraudulent activities on our platforms. We cannot fully eliminate insurance fraud and adverse selection insurance behaviors. Some patients on Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform have been reportedly falsifying medical or financial records to raise funds. Some participants of Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform may make false medical payout applications.

Although we have implemented various measures to detect and reduce the occurrence of fraudulent activities on our platform, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective in combating fraudulent transactions. In addition, illegal, fraudulent or collusive activities by our employees, crowdfunding consultants or third party agents could also subject us to liability and negative publicity. Any illegal, fraudulent or collusive activity could severely damage our brand and reputation as an operator of a trusted online platform, which could adversely affect our business.

Regulatory actions, legal proceedings and customer complaints against us could harm our reputation and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.

We were involved in litigations and other disputes in the ordinary course of our business, which include lawsuits, arbitration, regulatory proceedings and other disputes relating to our business. Along with growth and expansion of our business, we may be involved in litigations, regulatory proceedings and other disputes arising outside the ordinary course of our business. Such litigations and disputes may result in claims for actual damages, freezing of our assets, diversion of our management’s attention and reputational damage in to us and our management, as well as legal proceedings against our directors, officers or employees, and the probability and amount of liability, if any, may remain unknown for long periods of time. Given the uncertainty, complexity and scope of many of these litigation matters, their outcome generally cannot be predicted with any reasonable degree of certainty. Therefore, our reserves for such matters may be inadequate. Moreover, even if we eventually prevail in these matters, we could incur significant legal fees or suffer significant reputational harm.

Our current risk management system may not be able to exhaustively identify or mitigate all risks to which we are exposed.

We have established risk management, quality control and internal control systems, consisting of policies and procedures that we believe are appropriate for our business. However, the implementation of such policies and procedures may involve human error and mistakes. Moreover, we may be exposed to fraud or other misconduct committed by our employees, crowdfunding consultants, customer service personnel or other third parties, including but not limited to our users and business partners, or other events that are out of our control.

We may fail to accurately and timely process payout applications under mutual aid plans.

We must accurately and timely evaluate and process payout applications that are made under mutual aid plans that existed prior to our discontinuation of the mutual aid business in March 2021. Many factors affect our ability to process payout applications accurately and timely, including the efficacy of our artificial intelligence payout applications processing, the training and experience of our payout application reviewers and independent third-party application investigators, and our ability to develop or select and implement appropriate procedures and systems to support our payouts functions.

We may also encounter errors in any of the large number of payouts applications we process through our complex administrative systems. Any mistakes during the payout process may harm our business, reputation, results of operations, or financial condition. In addition, if we are unable to obtain necessary and accurate information from participants, we may be unable to process payout applications, which may harm our business, reputation, results of operations, or financial condition. Furthermore, any failure to payout accurately or timely could also lead to material litigation, or result in damage to our reputation, any one of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be able to ensure the accurate and complete disclosure of insurance product information.

Our users rely on the insurance product information we provide on our platform. We had in the past failed to provide legally required disclosure on our platform to the attention of our users, including failure to indicate name of certain insurance products for filing on visible place of our platform and failure to indicate payment methods for insurance premiums, issuance and delivery methods for insurance documentation, the procedure for policy cancellation and payment method for refund of cancelled policies and had been subject to fines. We had rectified the abovementioned failure in disclosure. If we provide any inaccurate or incomplete information on our platform due to either our own fault or that of insurance carriers, our consumers making the insurance purchase relying on the information may fail to receive the protection they expect and we may be warned or penalized by regulatory authorities, and our reputation could be harmed and we could experience reduced user traffic to our platform.

We may not be able to recommend the insurance products most suitable to our users.

Our search and recommendation engine may fail to function properly. The data provided to us by our users, insurance carriers and user acquisition channels may not be accurate or up to date. Our insurance agents and consultants may not fully understand users’ insurance needs and recommend suitable products to them. If our users are recommended insurance products that do not suit their protection needs, they may lose trust in our platform. Meanwhile, insurance carriers may find our recommendation ineffective. Our users and insurance carriers may consequently be reluctant to continue to use our platform.

Some of our shareholders offer similar products or services competing with ours.

Some of our shareholders also offer products and services competing with ours. For example, WeSure, Tencent’s online insurance brokerage platform offers online insurance distribution services as we do. Tencent currently beneficially owns 22.1% of our ordinary shares, and will own % immediately upon the completion of this offering. Internet conglomerates in China, such as Tencent and Meituan, have strong technological capabilities, and may independently develop more products and services competing with ours in the future. If competition between us and our shareholders becomes more intense in the future or they cease to cooperate with or provide support to us, our business and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

We face risks in properly managing the large amount of cash contributed by donors in our crowdfunding platform and participants of mutual aid plans.

The funds contributed by donors in our crowdfunding platform and participants of mutual aid plans are deposited in segregated bank accounts. We have entered into agreements with a commercial bank to act as a custodian bank and manage the different accounts. The bank follows our instruction with regard to withdrawal or transfer of funds. If we send incorrect instructions to the bank, the funds may be mistakenly withdrawn or transferred, which may give rise to disputes and claims against us.

We may face disruption to our technology systems and resulting interruptions in the availability of our services.

The satisfactory performance, reliability and availability of our technology systems are critical to our success. We rely on our scalable technology infrastructure and corresponding mobile apps, Weixin Mini Programs and Official Accounts connecting our network with those of our various platform users. However, our technology systems or infrastructure may not function properly at all

times. We may be unable to monitor and ensure high-quality maintenance and upgrade of our technology systems and infrastructure, and users may experience service outages and delays in accessing and using our platforms as we seek to source additional capacity. For instance, our medical crowdfunding needs constant calculation of amounts donated by donors and distributed to patients and our mutual aid businesses need constant calculation about the payouts to and allocated payout amounts from mutual aid participants, which may require additional capacity as our businesses further scale.

Our technology systems may also experience telecommunications failures, computer viruses, failures during the process of upgrading or replacing software, databases or components, power outages, hardware failures, user errors, or other attempts to harm our technology systems, which may result in the unavailability or slowdown of our platform or certain functions, delays or errors in transaction processing, loss of data, inability to accept and fulfill user request, reduced fund raised, FYP or size of mutual plans and the attractiveness of our platform. Further, hackers, acting individually or in coordinated groups, may also launch distributed denial of service attacks or other coordinated attacks that may cause service outages or other interruptions in our business.

Data security breach could happen on platform.

Our platform stores and processes certain personal and other sensitive data provided by users on our platforms, and we make certain personal information provided by the user or third party data providers available to banks or insurance carriers with user consent. Personally identifiable and other confidential information is increasingly subject to legislation and regulations in China and numerous foreign jurisdictions. The PRC government authorities have enacted a series of laws and regulations relating to the protection of privacy and personal information, under which internet service providers and other network operators are required to clearly indicate the purposes, methods and scope of any information collection and usage, to obtain appropriate user consent and to establish user information protection systems with appropriate remedial measures. However, this regulatory framework for privacy issues in China and worldwide is rapidly evolving and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. For example, the Standing Committee of the PRC National People’s Congress promulgated the Draft Personal Information Protection Law on October 21, 2020 for public opinion, which if enacted, is setting forth more specific requirements on protection of electronic or non-electronic information which is related to identified or identifiable natural persons. In addition to laws, regulations and other applicable rules regarding privacy and privacy advocacy, industry groups or other private parties may propose new and different privacy standards. We cannot assure you that our existing privacy and personal protection system and technical measures will always be considered sufficient under applicable laws, regulations and other privacy standards. We could be adversely affected if legislation or regulations in China are expanded to require changes in business practices or privacy policies, or if the PRC governmental authorities interpret or implement their legislation or regulations in ways that negatively affect our business. We may also be subject to additional regulations, laws and policies adopted by the PRC government to apply more stringent social and ethical standards in data privacy resulting from the increased global focus on this area.

We may not be able to access or accumulate sufficient data for business analysis.

We highly rely on our data in every step of our business, in particular, the entire insurance value chain, including research and co-design of insurance products, risk management, claim settlement, and policy holder services. We also rely on our data in the development and operation of mutual aid plans and medical crowdfunding business. We currently also use external data sources for our business analysis, which can become unavailable due to regulatory restrictions or other reasons.

Our business may be negatively impacted if the information that we receive from third parties for user verification purpose is inaccurate.

In order to verify the personal and financial information provided by our users, we obtain information from independent third-party data providers. We accordingly establish personal profiles for users and process the users’ crowdfunding campaigns, mutual aid plan enrollment, insurance policy purchase request and claims settlement applications based on such information we collect and the comparison of the information from third parties against those provided by the users themselves. However, as credit reporting systems for individuals in China are in their early stages of development, there are limited public sources available to verify the financial and other information of individual user, and the systems may not be able to reflect the actual profiles of these users constantly and accurately. Although we have developed our risk management and control procedures and policies and have devoted efforts to verifying the information provided by the users before we offer them our products or services, the effectiveness of such risk management is conditioned on the accuracy and completeness of the user information we obtain. We cannot guarantee the completeness or accuracy of any information we obtain with respect to any particular user. If the data and information we rely on are inaccurate or obsolete, we are exposed to higher risks of fraudulent user behavior . As a result, our business and operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We may fail to maintain the capability and accuracy in actuarial analysis.

We operate an intelligent system where we code underwriting criteria set by insurance carriers in our system and the system automatically generates eligibility for purchasing insurance products. Leveraging our deep understanding of consumer needs and actuarial capabilities, we also collaborate with some insurance carriers to co-design new insurance products. The proper functioning of our actuarial and statistical analysis, products pricing suggestion, risk management, financial control, accounting, user database, user service and other data processing systems is highly critical to our business and our ability to compete effectively. We rely on our dedicated talents with actuarial expertise to conduct actuarial analysis, and we rely on our research and development team to enhance our data capabilities to perform pricing modeling. We cannot guarantee you that we will successfully retain our employees with actuarial expertise or to hire new ones.

We leverage third-party user acquisition channels to bring in some of new users to our platforms and may incur significant costs on paying our user acquisition channels service fees.

In addition to growing our user base organically, we also cooperate with our user acquisition channels to convert their user traffic to user base of our platform. If our user acquisition channels do not renew their agreements with us, choose to work with our competitors, or terminate their cooperation with us, we may lose potential users and our business and results of operations will be negatively affected. In addition, if our user acquisition channels lose influence over their traffic or otherwise fail to effectively convert their users to our users, our business and results of operations may suffer.

Furthermore, we have incurred significant expenses on paying third-party user acquisition channels marketing fees. If certain of existing third-party user acquisition channels require higher rates of marketing fees or we fail to negotiate favorable terms with them or find new third-party user acquisition channels, our cost of user acquisition may increase, and our results of operations may be adversely affected.

If insurance carriers, user acquisition channel partners, other business partners, outsourced customer service personnel or other ecosystem participants engage in any misconduct or cause errors to occur in our operation, our business could be materially and adversely affected.

We are exposed to the risk of misconduct by third-party user acquisition channel partners, outsourced customer service personnel or other ecosystem participant and/or business partners to interact with users and provide various services. Misconduct could include making misrepresentations when marketing insurance products to users, recommending mutual aid plans, hiding or falsifying material information in relation to insurance contracts and mutual aid plans terms, colluding with applicants, insureds, or beneficiaries to obtain insurance or mutual aid benefits, failing to disclose legally required information to users, engaging in false claims or otherwise not complying with laws and regulations or our internal policies or procedures. Any of the aforementioned misconduct by parties we cooperate with may cause potential liabilities of us, and further subject us to regulatory actions and penalties. If any third parties that are important to our operations are sanctioned by regulatory actions, our business operations will be disrupted or otherwise negatively affected.

We are subject to payment processing risk.

We accept a wide variety of payment methods, including bank transfers and online payments through third-party online payment platforms such as Weixin Pay, UnionPay and Alipay, in order to ensure smooth user experience. For certain payment methods, we pay varying transaction fees, which may increase over time and increase our operating costs and lower our profit margins. We may also be subject to fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities in connection with the various payment methods we accept if we cannot implement risk management measures effectively.

We are also subject to various regulations, rules and requirements, regulatory or otherwise, governing online payment processing and fund transfers, which could change or be reinterpreted to make it difficult or impossible for us to comply with. If we fail to comply with these rules or requirements, we may be subject to fines and higher transaction fees and lose our ability to accept credit and debit card payments from users, process electronic fund transfers or facilitate other types of online payments.

Our future growth depends on the further acceptance of the internet as an effective platform for distributing insurance products and content.

The internet, and particularly the mobile internet, has gained increasing popularity in China as a platform for insurance products and content in recent years. However, certain participants in the industry, especially traditional insurance companies, and many insurance clients have limited experience in handling insurance products and content online, and some insurance customers may have reservations about using online platforms. For example, clients may not find online content to be reliable sources of insurance product information. Some insurance companies and reinsurance companies may not believe online platforms are secure for risk assessment and risk management. Others may not find online platforms effective when promoting and providing their products and services, especially to targeted clients in lower-tier cities or rural areas. If we fail to educate the insurance customers about the value of our platform and our products and services, our growth will be limited and our business, financial performance and prospects may be materially and adversely affected. The further acceptance of the internet and particularly the mobile internet as an effective and efficient platform for insurance products and content is also affected by factors beyond our control, including negative publicity and restrictive regulatory measures. If online and mobile networks do not achieve adequate acceptance in the market, our growth prospects, results of operations and financial condition could be harmed.

User growth and activity on mobile devices depend upon effective use of our mobile applications and third-party mobile operating systems that we do not control.

We are dependent on our users’ downloading and effective use of our mobile applications for their particular devices. We are further dependent on the interoperability of our mobile applications with third-party mobile operating systems that we do not control, such as iOS and Android, and any changes in such systems that degrade the functionality of our mobile applications could adversely affect the usage of our applications on mobile devices.

As new mobile devices and operating platforms are released, we may experience delay or difficulties in updating and integrating our mobile applications for these alternative devices and platforms and we may need to devote significant resources to the development, support and maintenance of such applications. Problems may also arise with our relationships with providers of mobile operating systems or mobile application download stores, such as our applications may receive unfavorable treatment compared to competing applications on the download stores. In the event that it becomes difficult for our consumers to access and use our applications on their mobile devices, our consumer growth could be harmed and our business and results of operations may be adversely affected.

We may fail to protect our intellectual properties.

We regard our software registrations, trademarks, patents, domain names, know-how, proprietary technologies and similar intellectual property as critical to our success, and we rely on a combination of intellectual property laws and contractual arrangements, including confidentiality and non-compete agreements with our employees and others to protect our proprietary rights. See “Business — Intellectual Property.” Despite these measures, any of our intellectual property rights could be challenged, invalidated, circumvented or misappropriated, or such intellectual property may not be sufficient to provide us with competitive advantages.

It is often difficult to maintain and enforce intellectual property rights in China. Statutory laws and regulations are subject to judicial interpretation and enforcement and may not be applied consistently. Confidentiality, invention assignment and non-compete agreements may be breached by counterparties, and there may not be adequate remedies available to us for any such breach. Accordingly, we may not be able to effectively protect our intellectual property rights or to enforce our contractual rights in China. In particular, some of our trademark applications for certain categories have been rejected, and we have applied for administrative reviews on such rejections. However, there can be no assurance that we will obtain such trademarks and any other trademarks that are crucial to our business in the future. Thus, we may be unable to prevent others from using such trademarks or suing us for infringement, or even unable to continue to use such trademarks in our business.

Preventing any unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly and the steps we take may be inadequate to prevent the misappropriation of our intellectual property. In the event that we resort to litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights, such litigation could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our managerial and financial resources. We can also provide no assurance that we will prevail in such litigation. In addition, our trade secrets may be leaked or otherwise become available to, or be independently discovered by, our competitors.

We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims.

We cannot be certain that our operations or any aspects of our business do not or will not infringe upon or otherwise violate trademarks, patents, copyrights, know-how or other intellectual property rights held by third parties. As of the date of this prospectus, we are still in the process of applying for two trademarks, which may be considered to resemble the trademarks held by third

parties. We may be from time to time in the future subject to legal proceedings and claims relating to the intellectual property rights of others. In addition, there may be third-party trademarks, patents, copyrights, know-how or other intellectual property rights that are infringed by our products, services or other aspects of our business without our awareness. If any third-party infringement claims are brought against us, we may be forced to divert management’s time and other resources from our business and operations to defend against these claims, regardless of their merits.

We may fail to make necessary or desirable strategic alliance, acquisition or investment, and we may not be able to achieve the benefits we expect from the alliances, acquisition or investments we make.

We may pursue selected strategic alliances and potential strategic acquisitions that are supplemental to our business and operations, including opportunities that can help us further expand our product and service offerings and improve our technology system. However, strategic alliances with third parties could subject us to a number of risks, including risks associated with sharing proprietary information, non-performance or default by counterparties, and increased expenses in establishing these new alliances, any of which may materially and adversely affect our business. In addition, we may have limited ability to control or monitor the actions of our strategic partners. To the extent a strategic partner suffers any negative publicity as a result of its business operations, our reputation may be negatively affected by virtue of our association with such party.

The costs of identifying and consummating strategic acquisitions may be significant and subsequent integrations of newly acquired companies, businesses, assets and technologies would require significant managerial and financial resources and could result in a diversion of resources from our existing business, which in turn could have an adverse effect on our growth and business operations. In addition, investments and acquisitions could result in the use of substantial amounts of cash, potentially dilutive issuances of equity securities and exposure to potential unknown liabilities of the acquired business. The acquired businesses or assets may not generate the financial results we expect and may incur losses. The cost and duration of integrating newly acquired businesses could also materially exceed our expectations. If our portfolio do not perform as we expect, our results of operation and profitability may be adversely affected.

Failure to maintain our cooperation with Tencent could have a material adverse effect on our business and prospects for growth.

Our business has benefited from our collaboration with Tencent, one of our principal shareholders, and we expect to continue to be leverage our collaboration with Tencent in the foreseeable future. As of the date of this prospectus, Tencent holds approximately 22.1% equity interests of our Company on an as-converted basis.

The user acquisition of our medical crowdfunding business largely relies on Weixin-based link sharing practice. Once a crowdfunding campaign is launched, a link to the crowdfunding campaign will be created and available for sharing. Starting from sharing by the patients’ relatives, friends and acquaintances, the link will be widely disseminated to a broader social network, which greatly helps the increase of number of donors and amount of fund raised. If the link sharing practice is restricted or becomes otherwise unavailable, the patients may not be able to raise enough funds for medical treatment, which may divert them to other crowdfunding platforms and the user acquisition of our medical crowdfunding business will be materially affected. Our insurance marketplace which partially relies on traffic from our medical crowdfunding business may also suffer.

In addition, we also operate our business through our Weixin Official Accounts and Mini Programs. Users may access our products or services through Weixin Mini Programs, operated by us. Furthermore, there are links embedded in the publications on our Official Accounts or Mini

Programs which will direct the users to download or launch our Apps. If our Official Accounts or Mini Programs cannot work due to service shutdown or the links directing to our own Apps are not available, our users may not be able to use or easily access our products or services.

We cannot assure you that we will be able to maintain the current level of cooperation with Tencent in the future. If our collaborative relationship with Tencent, particularly regarding the Weixin-based link sharing practice, is terminated or curtailed, or if any of the commercial terms between us and Tencent are revised or made less favorable to us, or if Tencent does not continue to or adequately promote our products and services, our ability to operate our business may be impaired and we may, in the worst case scenario, completely lose our ability to conduct links sharing practice, operate our Official Accounts and Mini Programs or promote our business on Tencent platforms.

Our success depends on the continuing efforts of our senior management and key employees.

Our future success is significantly dependent upon the continued service of our senior management and other key employees. If we lose their service, we may not be able to locate suitable or qualified replacements, and may incur additional expenses to recruit and train new staff, which could severely disrupt our business and growth. Our founder and chief executive officer, Mr. Peng Shen, and other management members are critical to our vision, strategic direction, culture and overall business success. If there is any internal organizational structure change or change in responsibilities for our management or key personnel, or if one or more of our senior management members were unable or unwilling to continue in their present positions, the operation of our business and our business prospects may be adversely affected. Our employees, including members of our management, may choose to pursue other opportunities. If we are unable to motivate or retain key employees, our business may be severely disrupted and our prospects could suffer. In addition, although we have entered into confidentiality and non-competition agreements with our management, there is no assurance that our management members would not join our competitors or form a competing business. If any dispute arises between our current or former officers and us, we may have to incur substantial costs and expenses in order to enforce such agreements in China or we may not be able to enforce them at all.

If we are unable to recruit, train and retain talents, our business may be materially and adversely affected.

We believe our future success depends on our continued ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain qualified and skilled employees. Competition for personnel with expertise in insurance, sales and marketing, technology and risk management is extremely intense in China. We may not be able to hire and retain these personnel at compensation levels consistent with our existing compensation and salary structure. Some of the companies with which we compete for experienced employees have greater resources than we have and may be able to offer more attractive terms of employment. In addition, we invest significant time and resources in training our employees, which increases their value to competitors who may seek to recruit them. If we fail to retain our employees, we could incur significant expenses in hiring and training new employees, and our ability to serve users and business partners could diminish, resulting in a material adverse effect to our business.

We may not be able to raise additional capital when desired, on favorable terms or at all.

We need to make continued investments in facilities, hardware, software, technological systems and to retain talents to remain competitive. Due to the unpredictable nature of the capital markets and our industry, there can be no assurance that we will be able to raise additional capital on terms favorable to us, or at all, if and when required, especially if we experience disappointing

operating results. If adequate capital is not available to us as required, our ability to fund our operations, take advantage of unanticipated opportunities, develop or enhance our infrastructure or respond to competitive pressures could be significantly limited. If we do raise additional funds through the issuance of equity or convertible debt securities, the ownership interests of our shareholders could be significantly diluted. These newly issued securities may have rights, preferences or privileges on par with or senior to those of existing shareholders.

Our insurance coverage may not be adequate, which could expose us to significant costs and business disruptions.

We maintain certain insurance policies to safeguard us against risks and unexpected events, including professional liability insurance and insurance broker/agent practice liability insurance. We provide social security insurance including pension insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance, maternity insurance and medical insurance for our employees pursuant to applicable PRC laws. We do not maintain business interruption insurance. We consider our insurance coverage to be sufficient for our business operations in China. However, we cannot assure you that our insurance coverage is sufficient to prevent us from any loss or that we will be able to successfully claim our losses under our current insurance policy on a timely basis, or at all. If we incur any loss that is not covered by our insurance policies, or the compensated amount is significantly less than our actual loss, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

If we fail to implement and maintain an effective system of internal controls to remediate our material weakness over financial reporting, we may be unable to accurately report our results of operations, meet our reporting obligations or prevent fraud.

Prior to this offering, we have been a private company with limited accounting personnel and other resources with which to address our internal control over financial reporting. In connection with the audits of our consolidated financial statements included in this prospectus, we and our independent registered public accounting firm identified one material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting. As defined in the standards established by the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

The material weakness that has been identified relates to our lack of sufficient skilled staff with appropriate knowledge of U.S. GAAP for the purpose of financial reporting and our lack of formal accounting policies and procedures manual to ensure proper financial reporting to comply with U.S. GAAP and SEC requirements. Neither we nor our independent registered public accounting firm undertook a comprehensive assessment of our internal control for purposes of identifying and reporting material weaknesses and other deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting. Had we performed a formal assessment of our internal control over financial reporting or had our independent registered public accounting firm performed an audit of our internal control over financial reporting, additional deficiencies may have been identified.

Following the identification of the material weakness and other deficiencies, we have taken measures and plan to continue to take measures to remediate these control deficiencies. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Internal Control Over Financial Reporting.” However, the implementation of these measures may not fully address the material weakness and other deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting, and we cannot conclude that they have been fully remediated. Our failure to correct the material weakness and other deficiencies or our failure to discover and address any other deficiencies could

result in inaccuracies in our financial statements and impair our ability to comply with applicable financial reporting requirements and related regulatory filings on a timely basis. Moreover, ineffective internal control over financial reporting could significantly hinder our ability to prevent fraud.

We will be subject to the reporting requirements of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”) and the rules and regulations of the New York Stock Exchange after the completion of this offering. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting. We are required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to perform system and process evaluation and testing of our internal controls over financial reporting to allow management to report on the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting in our Form 20-F beginning with our annual report in our second annual report after becoming a public company. Prior to this offering, we were never required to test our internal controls within a specified period, and, as a result, we may experience difficulty in meeting these reporting requirements in a timely manner.

Our management may conclude that our internal control over financial reporting is not effective. Moreover, even if our management concludes that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, our independent registered public accounting firm, after conducting its own independent testing, may issue an adverse report if it is not satisfied with our internal controls or the level at which our controls are documented, designed, operated or reviewed, or if it interprets the relevant requirements differently from us.

If we are not able to comply with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in a timely manner, or if we are unable to maintain the adequacy of our internal control over financial reporting, as these standards are modified, supplemented or amended from time to time, we may not be able to produce timely and accurate financial statements and may not be able to conclude on an ongoing basis that we have effective internal control over financial reporting in accordance with Section 404. If that were to happen, we could suffer material misstatements in our financial statements and fail to meet our reporting obligations, which could lead to a decline in the market price of our ADSs and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the New York Stock Exchange, SEC or other regulatory authorities. We may also be required to restate our financial statements for prior periods.

We have granted and may continue to grant options under our share incentive plans.

We adopted our 2018 Share Incentive Plan, as amended and restated, which we refer to as the 2018 Plan, and our 2021 Share Incentive Plan, as amended and restated, which we refer to as the 2021 Plan, for the purpose of granting share-based compensation awards to employees, directors and consultants to secure and retain the services of eligible award recipients and to provide incentives for such persons to exert maximum efforts for our success. We recognize expenses in our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Under the 2018 Plan and the 2021 Plan, we are authorized to grant options, restricted shares, restricted share units and other types of share awards. As of the date of this prospectus, the maximum aggregate number of Class A ordinary shares which may be issued pursuant to all awards under the 2018 Plan is 384,159,746 Class A ordinary shares, and we have outstanding options with respect to 285,474,868 Class A ordinary shares granted to our employees, directors and consultants under the 2018 Plan. As of the date of this prospectus, the maximum aggregate number of Class A ordinary shares that may be issued pursuant to all awards under the 2021 Plan is 80,508,501 Class A ordinary shares, and no award has been granted under the 2021 Plan. We expect to incur substantial share-based compensation expenses in the future. As a result, our expenses associated with share-based compensation may increase, which may have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

Further, we may re-evaluate the vesting schedules, lock-up period, exercise price or other key terms applicable to the grants under our equity incentive plan from time to time. If we choose to do so, we may experience substantial change in our share-based compensation charges in the reporting periods following this offering. For further information on our equity incentive plan and information on our recognition of related expenses, please see “Management — Share Incentive Plans.”

Our business has been and may continue to be adversely affected by the outbreak of COVID-19.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has already adversely affected our business. COVID-19 caused temporary closures of our offices and implementation of short-term measures for employees to work remotely from home in our headquarter and other offices, which resulted in decreased productivity of our workforce. As the hospitals were locked down in the beginning of 2020 according to government orders, our crowdfunding consultants could not enter the hospitals or patients’ wards during the lock-down period, which to certain extent adversely impacted the leads-sourcing activities in our crowdfunding business. We, insurance carriers and user acquisition channels and other business partners have been gradually recovering from the general shutdown and delay in commencement of operations in China since the beginning of March. Even though our business is currently operational, our operating efficiency and capacity may still be adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic mainly due to the necessity to comply with disease control protocols in business facilities and hospitals. The global spread of COVID-19 pandemic in major countries of the world may also result in global economic distress, and the extent to which it may affect our results of operations will depend on future developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, which are highly uncertain and difficult to predict. There may be potential impacts on our results of operations if the pandemic and the resulting disruption were to extend over a prolonged period.

In addition, if the global spread of COVID-19 and deterioration cannot be contained, risks set forth in this prospectus may be exacerbated or accelerated at a heightened level.

We face risks related to natural disasters, health epidemics and other outbreaks, which could significantly disrupt our operations.

In addition to the impact of COVID-19, our business could be materially and adversely affected by natural disasters, health epidemics or other public safety concerns affecting China. Natural disasters may give rise to server interruptions, breakdowns, system failures, technology platform failures or internet failures, which could cause the loss or corruption of data or malfunctions of software or hardware as well as adversely affect our ability to operate our platform and provide services and solutions. In recent years, there have been outbreaks of epidemics in China and globally, such as H1N1 flu, avian flu or another epidemic. Our business operations could be disrupted by any of these epidemics. In addition, our results of operations could be adversely affected to the extent that any health epidemic harms the Chinese economy in general. A prolonged outbreak of any of these illnesses or other adverse public health developments in China or elsewhere in the world could have a material adverse effect on our business operations. Such outbreaks could significantly impact the insurance industry, which could severely disrupt our operations and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our headquarters are located in Beijing, where most of our management and employees currently reside. Most of our system hardware and back-up systems are hosted in facilities located in Shanghai. Consequently, if any natural disasters, health epidemics or other public safety concerns were to affect Beijing, our operation may experience material disruptions, which may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

A severe or prolonged downturn in Chinese or global economy could materially and adversely affect our business and financial condition.

COVID-19 had a severe and negative impact on the Chinese and the global economy in the first quarter of 2020. Whether this will lead to a prolonged downturn in the economy is still unknown. China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported a negative GDP growth of 6.8% for the first quarter of 2020. Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, the global macroeconomic environment was facing numerous challenges. The growth rate of the Chinese economy had already been slowing since 2010. There is considerable uncertainty over the long-term effects of the expansionary monetary and fiscal policies which had been adopted by the central banks and financial authorities of some of the world’s leading economies, including the United States and China, even before 2020. Unrest, terrorist threats and the potential for war in the Middle East and elsewhere may increase market volatility across the globe. There have also been concerns about the relationship between China and other countries, including the surrounding Asian countries, which may potentially have economic effects. In particular, there is significant uncertainty about the future relationship between the United States and China with respect to trade policies, treaties, government regulations and tariffs. Economic conditions in China are sensitive to global economic conditions, as well as changes in domestic economic and political policies and the expected or perceived overall economic growth rate in China. Any severe or prolonged slowdown in the global or Chinese economy may materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Related to Our Corporate Structure

Foreign investment in the value-added telecommunication services industry and insurance industry in China is extensively regulated and subject to stringent requirements. Specifically, foreign ownership of a value-added telecommunication service provider may not exceed 50% (except for e-commerce, domestic multi-party communication, storage and forwarding classes and call centers) under the Special Administrative Measures for Access of Foreign Investment (Negative List) (2020 Edition), which is jointly promulgated by the National Development and Reform Commission, or NDRC and the Ministry of Commerce, or MOFCOM and became effective on July 23, 2020, and the major foreign investor is required to have a record of good performance and operating experience in managing value-added telecommunications business. In addition, the regulatory authority for insurance industry, the CBIRC, has imposed certain qualification requirements for foreign shareholders holding more than 25% of the shares in an insurance brokerage company or an insurance agency company.

We are an exempted company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and our PRC subsidiaries are considered foreign-invested enterprises. Accordingly, none of our wholly-owned PRC subsidiaries is eligible to provide value-added telecommunication services, insurance brokerage services or insurance agency services in China under PRC laws. To comply with the applicable PRC laws and regulations, we conduct such business through our VIEs and their subsidiaries, including Zongqing Xiangqian and Shuidi Insurance Brokerage. As of the date of this prospectus, three of our VIEs, including Zongqing Xiangqian, and certain subsidiaries of Zongqing Xiangqian hold the ICP License. Shuidi Insurance Brokerage holds the Insurance Brokerage License issued by the CBIRC, which allows it to conduct insurance brokerage business in China. Shuidi Insurance Brokerage also holds an ICP License. In addition, we expect to conduct insurance agency services through Tairui

Insurance Agency Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zongqing Xiangqian in the future. Our WFOE, Absolute Health, has entered into a series of contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their shareholders, which enable us to:

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exercise effective control over our VIEs;

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receive substantially all of the economic benefits and bear the obligation to absorb substantially all of the losses of our VIEs; and

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have an exclusive option to purchase all or part of the equity interests and assets in our VIEs when and to the extent permitted by PRC law.

As a result of these contractual arrangements, we have control over and are the primary beneficiary of our VIEs and hence consolidate financial results of our VIEs and its subsidiaries into our consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP. For a detailed discussion of these contractual arrangements, see “Corporate History and Structure.”

In the opinion of our PRC counsel, Han Kun Law Offices, (i) the ownership structures of our WFOE and our VIEs in China, currently and immediately after giving effect to this offering are not in violation of any explicit provisions of PRC laws and regulations currently in effect; and (ii) the agreements under the contractual arrangements between our WFOE, our VIEs and their shareholders governed by PRC law are valid, binding and enforceable against each party thereto in accordance with their terms. However, we have been further advised by our PRC counsel that there are substantial uncertainties regarding the interpretation and application of current and future PRC laws, regulations and rules. Thus, the PRC regulatory authorities may take a view contrary to the opinion of our PRC legal counsel. It is uncertain whether any new PRC laws or regulations relating to variable interest entity structure will be adopted or if adopted, what they would provide. If the ownership structures, contractual arrangements and business of our company, our PRC subsidiaries, our VIEs or subsidiaries our VIEs are found to be in violation of any existing or future PRC laws or regulations, or fail to obtain or maintain any of the required permits or approvals to operate our business, the relevant PRC regulatory authorities would have broad discretion to take action in dealing with such violations or failures, including:

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revoking the business licenses and/or operating licenses of such entities;

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imposing fines on us;

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confiscating any of our income that they deem to be obtained through illegal operations;

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discontinuing or placing restrictions or onerous conditions on our operations;

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placing restrictions on our right to collect revenues;

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shutting down our servers or blocking our app/websites;

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requiring us to restructure our ownership structure or operations;

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restricting or prohibiting our use of the proceeds from this offering or other of our financing activities to finance the business and operations of our VIEs and their subsidiaries; or

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taking other regulatory or enforcement actions that could be harmful to our business.

Any of these events could cause significant disruption to our business operations and severely damage our reputation, which would in turn have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. If occurrences of any of these events results in our inability to direct the activities of our VIEs and their subsidiaries in China that most significantly impact its economic performance, and/or our failure to receive the economic benefits and residual returns from our VIEs and their subsidiaries, and we are not able to restructure our ownership structure and operations in a satisfactory manner, we may not be able to consolidate the financial results of our VIEs or their subsidiaries in our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

The contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their shareholders may not be as effective as direct ownership in providing operational control.

We have to rely on the contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their shareholders to operate our business in China, including provision of certain value-added telecommunication services and insurance brokerage services. These contractual arrangements, however, may not be as effective as direct ownership in providing us with control over our VIEs. For example, our VIEs and their shareholders could breach their contractual arrangements with us by, among other things, failing to conduct the operations of our VIEs in an acceptable manner or taking other actions that are detrimental to our interests.

If we had direct ownership of our VIEs in China, we would be able to exercise our rights as a shareholder to effect changes in the board of directors of our VIEs, which in turn could implement changes, subject to any applicable fiduciary obligations, at the management and operational level. However, under the current contractual arrangements, we rely on the performance by our VIEs and their shareholders of their obligations under the contracts to exercise control over our VIEs. The shareholders of our VIEs may not act in the best interests of our company or may not perform their obligations under these contracts. If any dispute relating to these contracts remains unresolved, we will have to enforce our rights under these contracts through the operations of PRC law and arbitration, litigation and other legal proceedings and therefore will be subject to uncertainties in the PRC legal system. See “— Any failure by our VIEs or their shareholders to perform their obligations under our contractual arrangements with them would have a material and adverse effect on our business.”

Any failure by our VIEs or their shareholders to perform their obligations under our contractual arrangements with them would have a material and adverse effect on our business.

If our VIEs or their shareholders fail to perform their respective obligations under the contractual arrangements, we could be limited in our ability to enforce the contractual arrangements that give us effective control over our business operations in China and may have to incur substantial costs and expend additional resources to enforce such arrangements. We may also have to rely on legal remedies under PRC law, including seeking specific performance or injunctive relief, and contractual remedies, which we cannot assure you will be sufficient or effective under PRC law. For example, if the shareholders of our VIEs were to refuse to transfer their equity interests in our VIEs to us or our designee if we exercise the purchase option pursuant to these contractual arrangements, or if they were otherwise to act in bad faith toward us, then we may have to take legal actions to compel them to perform their contractual obligations. In addition, if there are any disputes or governmental proceedings involving any interest in such shareholders’ equity interests in our VIEs, our ability to exercise shareholders’ rights or foreclose the share pledges according to the contractual arrangements may be impaired. If these disputes or proceedings were to impair our control over our VIEs, we may not be able to maintain effective control over our business operations in the PRC and thus would not be able to continue to consolidate our VIEs’ financial results, which would in turn result in a material adverse effect on our business, operations and financial condition.

Our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Peng Shen, is subject to a lawsuit, and there is uncertainty as to the outcome of the claim and its impact on us.

In March 2021, a third party individual, or the Claimant, filed a complaint with the local court in Beijing in China against Mr. Peng Shen, our Chairman and CEO. Zongqing Xiangqian was named as a third party in the complaint. The complaint claims that the Claimant is entitled to receive 1.25% of the equity interest in Zongqing Xiangqian which was held by Mr. Peng Shen as the Claimant’s nominee after Zongqing Xiangqian’s series A preferred shares financing, pursuant to an agreement

entered into between them in 2017. Our current corporate structure was established in 2018, and Zongqing Xiangqian became our variable interest entity in November 2018 as part of the corporate restructuring then.

Our PRC counsel, Han Kun Law Offices, advises us that based on the evidence presented in the complaint to date there are meritorious defenses to the Claimant’s claims. However, we are not sure there would be no new facts presented in the case and if new facts were to be presented, how such facts could affect the court’s decision. In addition, if the Claimant prevailed in the present proceeding, there is no assurance that he would not file a new complaint seeking additional remedies.

In the event the Claimant were able to prevail in his claim for the alleged equity interest in Zongqing Xiangqian, there could be a number of potential remedies, which include awarding the Claimant an interest, direct or indirect, in Zongqing Xiangqian. If the Claimant were awarded a direct ownership interest through transfer of Mr. Peng Shen’s existing equity interest, such transfer would, according to our PRC counsel, be subject to the right of first refusal by other shareholders of Zongqing Xiangqian under the PRC Company Law. In the event the Claimant obtained a direct ownership interest in Zongqing Xiangqian, we will not be able to receive the corresponding economic benefits from the alleged equity interest in Zongqing Xiangqian under the current contractual arrangements.

Our contractual arrangements are governed by PRC law. Accordingly, these contracts would be interpreted in accordance with PRC law, and any disputes would be resolved in accordance with PRC legal procedures, which may not protect you as much as those of other jurisdictions, such as the United States.

All the agreements under our contractual arrangements are governed by PRC law and provide for the resolution of disputes through arbitration in China. Accordingly, these contracts would be interpreted in accordance with PRC law and any disputes would be resolved in accordance with PRC legal procedures. The legal system in the PRC is not as developed as in some other jurisdictions, such as the United States. As a result, uncertainties in the PRC legal system could limit our ability to enforce these contractual arrangements. See “— Risks Related to Doing Business in China — Uncertainties with respect to the PRC legal system could adversely affect us.” Meanwhile, there are very few precedents and little formal guidance as to how contractual arrangements in the context of a consolidated variable interest entity should be interpreted or enforced under PRC law. There remain significant uncertainties regarding the ultimate outcome of such arbitration should legal action become necessary. In addition, under PRC law, rulings by arbitrators are final, parties cannot appeal the arbitration results in courts, and if the losing parties fail to carry out the arbitration awards within a prescribed time limit, the prevailing parties may only enforce the arbitration awards in PRC courts through arbitration award recognition proceedings, which would require additional expenses and delay. In the event we are unable to enforce these contractual arrangements, or if we suffer significant delay or other obstacles in the process of enforcing these contractual arrangements, we may not be able to exert effective control over our VIEs, and our ability to conduct our business may be negatively affected.

The shareholders of our VIEs may have actual or potential conflicts of interest with us.

The shareholders of our VIEs may have actual or potential conflicts of interest with us. These shareholders may breach, or cause our VIEs to breach, or refuse to renew, the existing contractual arrangements we have with them and our VIEs, which would have a material and adverse effect on our ability to effectively control our VIEs and receive economic benefits from them. For example, the shareholders may be able to cause our agreements with our VIEs to be performed in a manner adverse to us by, among other things, failing to remit payments due under the contractual

arrangements to us on a timely basis. We cannot assure you that when conflicts of interest arise any or all of these shareholders will act in the best interests of our company or such conflicts will be resolved in our favor.

Currently, we do not have any arrangements to address potential conflicts of interest between these shareholders and our company, except that we could exercise our purchase option under the exclusive option agreements with these shareholders to request them to transfer all of their equity interests in the VIEs to a PRC entity or individual designated by us, to the extent permitted by PRC law. For individuals who are also our directors and officers, we rely on them to abide by the laws of the Cayman Islands, which provide that directors and officers owe a fiduciary duty to the company that requires them to act in good faith and in what they believe to be the best interests of the company and not to use their position for personal gains. The shareholders of our VIEs have executed powers of attorney to appoint our WFOE or a person designated by our WFOE to vote on their behalf and exercise voting rights as shareholders of our VIEs. If we cannot resolve any conflict of interest or dispute between us and the shareholders of our VIEs, we would have to rely on legal proceedings, which could result in disruption of our business and subject us to substantial uncertainty as to the outcome of any such legal proceedings.

The shareholders of our VIEs may be involved in personal disputes with third parties or other incidents that may have an adverse effect on their respective equity interests in our VIEs and the validity or enforceability of our contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their shareholders. For example, in the event that any of the shareholders of our VIEs divorces his spouse, the spouse may claim that the equity interest of the VIEs held by such shareholder is part of their community property and should be divided between such shareholder and his spouse. If such claim is supported by the court, the relevant equity interest may be obtained by the shareholder’s spouse or another third party who is not subject to obligations under our contractual arrangements, which could result in a loss of the effective control over the VIEs by us. Similarly, if any of the equity interests of our VIEs is inherited by a third party with whom the current contractual arrangements are not binding, we could lose our control over the VIEs or have to maintain such control by incurring unpredictable costs, which could cause significant disruption to our business and operations and harm our financial condition and results of operations.

Although under our current contractual arrangements, (i) each of the spouses of Mr. Peng Shen, Mr. Guang Yang and Mr. Wei Ran has respectively executed a spousal consent letter, under which each spouse agrees that she will not raise any claims against the equity interest, and will take every action to ensure the performance of the contractual arrangements, and (ii) the VIEs and their shareholders shall not assign any of their respective rights or obligations to any third party without the prior written consent of our WFOE, we cannot assure you that these undertakings and arrangements will be complied with or effectively enforced. In the case any of them is breached or becomes unenforceable and leads to legal proceedings, it could disrupt our business, distract our management’s attention and subject us to substantial uncertainties as to the outcome of any such legal proceedings.

Contractual arrangements in relation to our VIEs may be subject to scrutiny by the PRC tax authorities and they may determine that we or our VIEs owe additional taxes, which could negatively affect our financial condition and the value of your investment.

Under applicable PRC laws and regulations, arrangements and transactions among related parties may be subject to audit or challenge by the PRC tax authorities. We could face material and adverse tax consequences if the PRC tax authorities determine that the contractual arrangements in relation to our VIEs were not entered into on an arm’s length basis in such a way as to result in an impermissible reduction in taxes under applicable PRC laws, rules and regulations, and adjust income of our VIEs in the form of a transfer pricing adjustment. A transfer pricing adjustment could,

among other things, result in a reduction of expense deductions recorded by our VIEs for PRC tax purposes, which could in turn increase their tax liabilities without reducing our PRC subsidiaries’ tax expenses. In addition, the PRC tax authorities may impose late payment fees and other penalties on our VIEs for the adjusted but unpaid taxes according to the applicable regulations. Our financial position could be materially and adversely affected if our VIEs’ tax liabilities increase or if they are required to pay late payment fees and other penalties.

We may lose the ability to use and enjoy assets held by our VIEs that are critical to the operation of our business if our VIEs declare bankruptcy or become subject to a dissolution or liquidation proceeding.

Our VIEs hold certain assets that may be critical to the operation of our business, including permits, domain names and most of our intellectual property rights. If the shareholders of our VIEs breach the contractual arrangements and voluntarily liquidate the VIEs or their subsidiaries, or if our VIEs or their subsidiaries declare bankruptcy and all or part of their assets become subject to liens or rights of third-party creditors or are otherwise disposed of without our consent, we may be unable to continue some or all of our business activities, which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if our VIEs or their subsidiaries undergo an involuntary liquidation proceeding, third-party creditors may claim rights to some or all of their assets, thereby hindering our ability to operate our business, which could materially or adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our current corporate structure and business operations may be substantially affected by the newly enacted Foreign Investment Law.

On March 15, 2019, the National People’s Congress promulgated the Foreign Investment Law, which took effect on January 1, 2020. On December 26, 2019, the PRC State Council approved the Implementation Rules of Foreign Investment Law, which came into effect on January 1, 2020. Since the Foreign Investment Law and its implementation rules are relatively new, substantially uncertainties exist in relation to its interpretation and implementation. The Foreign Investment law does not explicitly classify whether variable interest entities that are controlled through contractual arrangements would be deemed as foreign invested enterprises if they are ultimately “controlled” by foreign investors. However, it has a catch-all provision under definition of “foreign investment” that includes investments made by foreign investors in China through other means as provided by laws, administrative regulations or the State Council. Therefore, it still leaves leeway for future laws, administrative regulations or provisions of the State Council to provide for contractual arrangements as a form of foreign investment, at which time it will be uncertain whether our contractual arrangements will be deemed to be in violation of the market access requirements for foreign investment in the PRC and if yes, how our contractual arrangements should be dealt with.

The Foreign Investment Law grants national treatment to foreign-invested entities, except for those foreign-invested entities that operate in industries specified as either “restricted” or “prohibited” from foreign investment in the “negative list”, which is most recently jointly promulgated by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce and took effective on July 23, 2020. The Foreign Investment Law provides that foreign-invested entities operating in “restricted” or “prohibited” industries will require market entry clearance and other approvals from relevant PRC government authorities. If our control over our VIEs through contractual arrangements are deemed as foreign investment in the future, and any business of our VIEs is “restricted” or “prohibited” from foreign investment under the “negative list” effective at the time, we may be deemed to be in violation of the Foreign Investment Law, the contractual arrangements that allow us to have control over our VIEs may be deemed as invalid and illegal, and we may be required to unwind such contractual arrangements and/or restructure our business operations, any of which may have a material adverse effect on our business operation.

Furthermore, if future laws, administrative regulations or provisions mandate further actions to be taken by companies with respect to existing contractual arrangements, we may face substantial uncertainties as to whether we can complete such actions in a timely manner or at all. Failure to take timely and appropriate measures to cope with any of these or similar regulatory compliance challenges could materially and adversely affect our current corporate structure and business operations.

If we exercise the option to acquire equity interest of the VIEs, this equity interest transfer may subject us to certain limitations and substantial costs.

Under the current PRC laws, foreign investors are generally not allowed to hold more than 50% of the equity interest of any company providing certain value-added telecommunications services with certain exceptions and any such must have prior experience in operating value-added telecommunications businesses and a proven track record of business operations overseas, or the Qualification Requirements. Currently no applicable PRC laws or regulations provides clear guidance or interpretation on these requirements. We still face the risk of not satisfying the requirement promptly. If PRC laws change to allow foreign investors to invest in value-added telecommunications enterprises in the PRC, we may be unable to unwind our contractual arrangements with the VIE and its shareholders before we are able to comply with the Qualification Requirements and other requirements.

Pursuant to the contractual arrangements, our WFOE has the irrevocable and exclusive right to purchase all or any part of the relevant equity interest in our VIEs from our VIEs’ shareholders at any time and from time to time in their absolute discretion to the extent permitted by PRC laws. The consideration our WFOE pays for such purchases will be a nominal price or the lowest price as permitted under applicable PRC laws or an amount equal to the registered capital contributed by the relevant shareholder. This equity transfer may be subject to approvals from, filings with, or reporting to competent PRC authorities, such as the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration of Market Regulation, and/or their local competent branches. In addition, the equity transfer price may be subject to review and tax adjustment by the relevant tax authorities.

Risks Related to Doing Business in China

Changes in China’s economic, political or social conditions or government policies could have a material adverse effect on our business and operations.

Substantially all of our assets and operations are located in China. Accordingly, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects may be influenced to a significant degree by economic, political and social conditions in China generally. The Chinese economy differs from the economies of most developed countries in many respects, including the level of development, growth rate, level of government involvement and control of foreign exchange and allocation of resources. The PRC government exercises significant control over China’s economic growth through allocating resources, controlling payment of foreign currency-denominated obligations, setting monetary policy, and providing preferential treatment to particular industries or companies. In addition, the PRC government continues to play a significant role in regulating industry development by imposing relevant industrial policies.

While the Chinese economy has experienced significant growth over the past decades, growth has been uneven, both geographically and among various sectors of the economy, and the rate of growth has been slowing since 2012. Any adverse changes in economic conditions in China, in the policies of the PRC government or in the laws and regulations in China could have a material adverse effect on the overall economic growth of China. Such developments could adversely affect

our business and operating results, lead to reduction in demand for our services and adversely affect our competitive position. The PRC government has implemented various measures to encourage economic growth and guide the allocation of resources. Some of these measures may benefit the overall Chinese economy, but may have a negative effect on us. For example, our financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected by government control over capital investments or changes in tax regulations. In addition, in the past the PRC government has implemented certain measures, including interest rate adjustment, to control the pace of economic growth. These measures may cause decreased economic activity in China, which may adversely affect our business and results of operations. In addition, the increased global focus on social, ethical and environmental issues may lead to China’s adoption of more stringent standards in these areas, which may adversely impact the operations of China-based companies including us.

Uncertainties with respect to the PRC legal system could adversely affect us.

The PRC legal system is a civil law system based on written statutes, where prior court decisions have limited precedential value. The PRC legal system is evolving rapidly, and the interpretations of many laws, regulations and rules may contain inconsistencies and enforcement of these laws, regulations and rules involves uncertainties.

From time to time, we may have to resort to administrative and court proceedings to enforce our legal rights. However, since the PRC judicial and administrative authorities have significant discretion in interpreting and implementing statutory and contractual terms, it may be more difficult to predict the outcome of a judicial or administrative proceeding than in more developed legal systems. These uncertainties may impede our ability to enforce the contracts we have entered into and could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Furthermore, the PRC legal system is based, in part, on government policies and internal rules, some of which are not published in a timely manner or at all, but which may have retroactive effect. As a result, we may not always be aware of any potential violation of these policies and rules. Such unpredictability towards our contractual, property (including intellectual property) and procedural rights could adversely affect our business and impede our ability to continue our operations.

We may be adversely affected by the complexity, uncertainties and changes in PRC regulation of internet-related businesses and companies.

The PRC government extensively regulates the internet industry, including foreign ownership of, and the licensing and permit requirements pertaining to, companies operating in the internet industry. These internet-related laws and regulations are relatively new and evolving, and their interpretation and enforcement involve significant uncertainties. As a result, in certain circumstances it may be difficult to determine what actions or omissions may be deemed to be in violation of applicable laws and regulations.

We only have contractual control over our VIEs and their subsidiaries. We do not directly own the VIEs due to the restriction of foreign investment in certain businesses, including internet information provision services. This may subject us to sanctions, or compromise enforceability of related contractual arrangements, which may result in significant disruption to our business.

The evolving PRC regulatory system for the internet industry may lead to the establishment of new regulatory agencies. For example, in March 2018, the State Council announced the establishment of a new department, the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (with the involvement of the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or the MIIT, and the Ministry of Public Security). The primary role of this new agency is to facilitate the policy-making and legislative development in this field, to direct and coordinate with

the relevant departments in connection with online content administration and to deal with cross-ministry regulatory matters in relation to the internet industry, and the National Computer Network and Information Security Management Center was adjusted to be managed by the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission Office instead of the MIIT.

We have obtained the ICP License, the Internet Culture Business Operation License, and other relevant permits required for operating our business. However, we have not obtained and are in the process of applying for or updating certain approvals or permits which are required or may be required for our operation of internet related businesses. For example, we are planning to apply for the Commercial Performance License for providing streamer agency services. Although we are planning to apply or in the process of applying for such licenses, if we fail to obtain, maintain or renew such licenses, or obtain any additional licenses and permits or make any records or filings required by new laws or regulations required for our new business in a timely manner or at all, we could be subject to liabilities or penalties, and our operations could be adversely affected.

The interpretation and application of existing PRC laws, regulations and policies and possible new laws, regulations or policies relating to the internet industry have created substantial uncertainties regarding the legality of existing and future foreign investments in, and the businesses and activities of, internet businesses in China, including our business. We cannot assure you that we have obtained all the permits or licenses required for conducting our business in China or will be able to maintain our existing licenses or obtain new ones. If the PRC government considers that we were operating without the proper approvals, licenses or permits or promulgates new laws and regulations that require additional approvals or licenses or imposes additional restrictions on the operation of any part of our business, it has the power, among other things, to levy fines, confiscate our income, revoke our business licenses and require us to discontinue our relevant business or impose restrictions on the affected portion of our business. Any of these actions by the PRC government may have a material adverse impact on our business and results of operations.

You may experience difficulties in effecting service of legal process, enforcing foreign judgments or bringing actions in China against us or our management named in the prospectus based on foreign laws.

We are an exempted company incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands, however, we conduct substantially all of our operations in China and substantially all of our assets are located in China. In addition, all our senior executive officers reside within China for a significant portion of the time and all of them are PRC nationals. As a result, it may be difficult for our shareholders to effect service of process upon us or our management residing in China. In addition, China does not have treaties providing for reciprocal recognition and enforcement of judgments of courts with the Cayman Islands and some other countries and regions. Therefore, recognition and enforcement in China of judgments of a court in any of these non-PRC jurisdictions in relation to any matter not subject to a binding arbitration provision may be difficult or impossible.

It may be difficult for overseas regulators to conduct investigation or collect evidence within China.

Shareholder claims or regulatory investigation that are common in the United States generally are difficult to pursue as a matter of law or practicality in China. For example, in China, there are significant legal and other obstacles to providing information needed for regulatory investigations or litigation initiated outside China. Although the authorities in China may establish a regulatory cooperation mechanism with the securities regulatory authorities of another country or region to implement cross-border supervision and administration, such cooperation with the securities regulatory authorities in the Unities States may not be efficient in the absence of mutual and practical cooperation mechanism. Furthermore, according to Article 177 of the PRC Securities Law,

or Article 177, which became effective in March 2020, no overseas securities regulator is allowed to directly conduct investigation or evidence collection activities within the territory of the PRC. While detailed interpretation of or implementation rules under Article 177 have yet to be promulgated, the inability for an overseas securities regulator to directly conduct investigation or evidence collection activities within China may further increase difficulties faced by you in protecting your interests. See also “—Risks Related to Our ADSs and This Offering — You may face difficulties in protecting your interests, and your ability to protect your rights through U.S. courts may be limited, because we are incorporated under Cayman Islands law” for risks associated with investing in us as a Cayman Islands company.

If we are classified as a PRC resident enterprise for PRC income tax purposes, such classification could result in unfavorable tax consequences to us and our non-PRC shareholders and ADS holders.

Under the PRC Enterprise Income Tax Law and its implementation rules, an enterprise established outside of the PRC with “de facto management body” within China is considered a “resident enterprise” and will be subject to the enterprise income tax on its global income at the rate of 25%. The implementation rules define the term “de facto management body” as the body that exercises full and substantial control and overall management over the business, productions, personnel, accounts and properties of an enterprise. In 2009, the State Administration of Taxation, or SAT, issued the Circular of the State Administration of Taxation on Issues Relating to Identification of PRC-Controlled Overseas Registered Enterprises as Resident Enterprises in Accordance with the De Facto Standards of Organizational Management, or SAT Circular 82, which provides certain specific criteria for determining whether the “de facto management body” of a PRC-controlled enterprise that is incorporated offshore is located in China. Although this circular only applies to offshore enterprises controlled by PRC enterprises or PRC enterprise groups, not those controlled by PRC individuals or foreigners, the criteria set forth in the circular may reflect SAT’s general position on how the “de facto management body” text should be applied in determining the tax resident status of all offshore enterprises. According to SAT Circular 82, an offshore incorporated enterprise controlled by a PRC enterprise or a PRC enterprise group will be regarded as a PRC tax resident by virtue of having its “de facto management body” in China and will be subject to PRC enterprise income tax on its global income only if all of the following conditions are met: (i) the primary location of the day-to-day operational management is in China; (ii) decisions relating to the enterprise’s financial and human resource matters are made or are subject to approval by organizations or personnel in China; (iii) the enterprise’s primary assets, accounting books and records, company seals, and board and shareholder resolutions, are located or maintained in China; and (iv) at least 50% of voting board members or senior executives habitually reside in China.

We believe none of our entities outside of China is a PRC resident enterprise for PRC tax purposes. However; the tax resident status of an enterprise is subject to determination by the PRC tax authorities and uncertainties remain with respect to the interpretation of the term “de facto management body.” If the PRC tax authorities determine that Waterdrop Inc. is a PRC resident enterprise for enterprise income tax purposes, we could be subject to PRC tax at a rate of 25% on our worldwide income, which could materially reduce our net income, and we may be required to withhold a 10% withholding tax from dividends we pay to our shareholders that are non-resident enterprises, including the holders of our ADSs. In addition, non-resident enterprise shareholders (including our ADS holders) may be subject to PRC tax at a rate of 10% on gains realized on the sale or other disposition of ADSs or Class A ordinary shares, if such income is treated as sourced from within China. Furthermore, if we are deemed a PRC resident enterprise, dividends payable to our non-PRC individual shareholders (including our ADS holders) and any gain realized on the transfer of ADSs or Class A ordinary shares by such shareholders may be subject to PRC tax at a

rate of 20% (and such PRC tax may be withheld at source in the case of dividends). Any PRC income tax liability may be reduced under applicable tax treaties. However, it is unclear whether in practice non-PRC shareholders of Waterdrop Inc. would be able to obtain the benefits of any tax treaties between their country of tax residence and the PRC in the event that we are treated as a PRC resident enterprise. Any such tax may reduce the returns on your investment in the ADSs or Class A ordinary shares.

We face uncertainties with respect to indirect transfers of equity interests in PRC resident enterprises by their non-PRC holding companies.

We face uncertainties regarding the reporting on and consequences of previous private equity financing transactions involving the transfer and exchange of shares in our company by non-resident investors. In February 2015, the SAT issued the Bulletin on Issues of Enterprise Income Tax on Indirect Transfers of Assets by Non PRC Resident Enterprises, or Bulletin 7. Pursuant to Bulletin 7, an “indirect transfer” of PRC assets, including a transfer of equity interests in an unlisted non-PRC holding company of a PRC resident enterprise, by non-PRC resident enterprises may be re-characterized and treated as a direct transfer of the underlying PRC assets, if such arrangement does not have a reasonable commercial purpose and was established for the purpose of avoiding payment of PRC enterprise income tax. As a result, gains derived from such indirect transfer may be subject to PRC enterprise income tax, and the transferee or other person who is obligated to pay for the transfer is obligated to withhold the applicable taxes, currently at a rate of 10% for the transfer of equity interests in a PRC resident enterprise. Bulletin 7 also introduced safe harbors for internal group restructurings and the purchase and sale of equity securities through a public securities market. On October 17, 2017, the SAT issued the Announcement of the State Administration of Taxation on Issues Concerning the Withholding of Non-resident Enterprise Income Tax at Source, or Bulletin 37, which came into effect on December 1, 2017. The Bulletin 37 further clarifies the practice and procedure of the withholding of nonresident enterprise income tax.

We face uncertainties on the reporting and consequences of future private equity financing transactions, share exchanges or other transactions involving the transfer of shares in our company by investors that are non-PRC resident enterprises. The PRC tax authorities may pursue such non-resident enterprises with respect to a filing or the transferees with respect to withholding obligation, and request our PRC subsidiaries to assist in the filing. As a result, we and non-resident enterprises in such transactions may become at risk of being subject to filing obligations or being taxed under Bulletin 7 and Bulletin 37, and may be required to expend valuable resources to comply with them or to establish that we and our non-resident enterprises should not be taxed under these regulations, which may have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

If our preferential tax treatments and government subsidies are revoked or become unavailable or if the calculation of our tax liability is successfully challenged by the PRC tax authorities, we may be required to pay tax, interest and penalties in excess of our tax provisions.

The Chinese government has provided tax incentives to our PRC subsidiaries in China, including reduced enterprise income tax rates. For example, under the Enterprise Income Tax Law and its implementation rules, the statutory enterprise income tax rate is 25%. However, the income tax of an enterprise that has been determined to be a high and new technology enterprise can be reduced to a preferential rate of 15%. Any increase in the enterprise income tax rate applicable to our PRC subsidiaries in China, or any discontinuation, retroactive or future reduction or refund of any of the preferential tax treatments and local government subsidies currently enjoyed by our PRC subsidiaries in China, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Further, in the ordinary course of our business, we are subject to complex income tax and other tax regulations, and significant judgment is required in the determination of a provision for income taxes. Although we believe our tax provisions are reasonable, if the PRC tax authorities successfully challenge our position and we are required to pay tax, interest and penalties in excess of our tax provisions, our financial condition and results of operations would be materially and adversely affected.

The M&A Rules and certain other PRC regulations may make it more difficult for us to pursue growth through acquisitions.

The Regulations on Mergers and Acquisitions of Domestic Companies by Foreign Investors, or the M&A Rules, adopted by six PRC regulatory agencies in 2006 and amended in 2009, and some other regulations and rules concerning mergers and acquisitions established complex procedures and requirements for some acquisitions of Chinese companies by foreign investors, including requirements in some instances that the MOFCOM, be notified in advance of any change-of-control transaction in which a foreign investor takes control of a PRC domestic enterprise. Moreover, the Anti-Monopoly Law promulgated by the Standing Committee of the PRC National People’s Congress, which became effective in 2008 requires that transactions which are deemed concentrations and involve parties with specified turnover thresholds must be cleared by MOFCOM before they can be completed. On February 7, 2021, the Anti-Monopoly Committee of the State Council published the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Internet Platform Economy Sector, which intends to regulate abuse of a dominant position and other anti-competitive practices by online platform operators and the related service providers on online platforms. It also stipulates that any concentration of undertakings involving variable interest entities shall fall within the scope of anti-monopoly review. If a concentration of undertakings meets the thresholds for clearance under the applicable laws, an internet platform operator shall report such concentration of undertakings to the anti-monopoly law enforcement agency under the State Council in advance. Therefore, our acquisitions of other entities that we make in the future (whether by ourselves, our subsidiaries or through our variable interest entities) and that meets the thresholds for clearance, may be required to be report to and approved by the anti-monopoly law enforcement agency in the PRC, and we may be subject to penalty including but not limited to a fine of no more than RMB500,000 if we fail to comply with such requirement. In addition, the security review rules issued by MOFCOM that became effective in September 2011 specify that mergers and acquisitions by foreign investors that raise “national defense and security” concerns and mergers and acquisitions through which foreign investors may acquire de facto control over domestic enterprises that raise “national security” concerns are subject to strict review by MOFCOM, and the rules prohibit any activities attempting to bypass a security review, including by structuring the transaction through a proxy or contractual control arrangement. On December 19, 2020, the Measures for the Security Review for Foreign Investment was jointly issued by NDRC and MOFCOM and took effect from January 18, 2021. The Measures for the Security Review for Foreign Investment specified provisions concerning the security review mechanism on foreign investment, including the types of investments subject to review, review scopes and procedures, among others.

In the future, we may pursue potential strategic acquisitions that are complementary to our business and operations. Complying with the requirements of the above-mentioned regulations and other relevant rules to complete such transactions could be time-consuming, and any required approval processes, including obtaining approval or clearance from MOFCOM or its local counterparts or other relevant governmental authorities, may delay or inhibit our ability to complete such transactions, which could affect our ability to expand our business or maintain our market share.

The approval of the China Securities Regulatory Commission may be required in connection with this offering, and, if required, we cannot predict whether we will be able to obtain such approval.

The M&A Rules requires an overseas special purpose vehicles that are controlled by PRC companies or individuals formed for the purpose of seeking a public listing on an overseas stock exchange through acquisitions of PRC domestic interests using shares of such special purpose vehicles or held by its shareholders as considerations to obtain the approval of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, or the CSRC, prior to the listing and trading of such special purpose vehicle’s securities on an overseas stock exchange. However, the application of the M&A Rules remains unclear. If CSRC approval is required, it is uncertain whether it would be possible for us to obtain the approval.

Our PRC counsel has advised us based on their understanding of the current PRC laws, regulations and rules that the aforesaid CSRC’s approval may not be required for the listing and trading of our ADSs on the NYSE in the context of this offering, given that: (i) the CSRC currently has not issued any definitive rule or interpretation concerning whether offerings like ours in this prospectus are subject to this regulation, (ii) each of our PRC subsidiaries was incorporated as a wholly foreign-owned enterprise by means of direct investment rather than by merger or acquisition of equity interest or assets of a PRC domestic company owned by PRC companies or individuals as defined under the M&A Rules, and (iii) no provision in the M&A Rules clearly classifies contractual arrangements as a type of transaction subject to the M&A Rules.

However, our PRC counsel has further advised us that there remains some uncertainty as to how the M&A Rules will be interpreted or implemented in the context of an overseas offering and its opinions summarized above are subject to any new laws, regulations and rules or detailed implementations and interpretations in any form relating to the M&A Rules. We cannot assure you that relevant PRC government agencies, including the CSRC, would reach the same conclusion as we do. If it is determined that CSRC approval is required for this offering, we may face sanctions by the CSRC or other PRC regulatory agencies for failure to obtain or delay in obtaining CSRC approval for this offering. These sanctions may include fines and penalties on our operations in China, limitations on our operating privileges in China, delays in or restrictions on the repatriation of the proceeds from this offering into the PRC, restrictions on or prohibition of the payments or remittance of dividends by our subsidiaries in China, or other actions that could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, reputation and prospects, as well as the trading price of our ADSs. The CSRC or other PRC regulatory agencies may also take actions requiring us, or making it advisable for us, to halt this offering before the settlement and delivery of the ADSs that we are offering. Consequently, if you engage in market trading or other activities in anticipation of and prior to the settlement and delivery of the ADSs we are offering, you would be doing so at the risk that the settlement and delivery may not occur. In addition, if the CSRC or other regulatory agencies later promulgate new rules or explanations requiring that we obtain their approvals for this offering, we may be unable to obtain a waiver of such approval requirements, if and when procedures are established to obtain such a waiver.

Any failure to comply with PRC regulations regarding the registration requirements for employee share incentive plans may subject our share incentive plan participants or us to fines and other legal or administrative sanctions.

In February 2012, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, or the SAFE promulgated the Notices on Issues Concerning the Foreign Exchange Administration for Domestic Individuals Participating in Stock Incentive Plan of Overseas Publicly Listed Company, replacing earlier rules promulgated in 2007. Pursuant to these rules, PRC citizens and non-PRC citizens who reside in China for a continuous period of not less than one year and participate in any stock incentive plan

of an overseas publicly listed company, subject to a few exceptions, are required to register with SAFE through a domestic qualified agent, which could be the PRC subsidiaries of such overseas-listed company, and complete certain other procedures. In addition, an overseas-entrusted institution must be retained to handle matters in connection with the exercise or sale of stock options and the purchase or sale of shares and interests. We and our executive officers and other employees who are PRC citizens or who reside in China for a continuous period of not less than one year and who have been granted options will be subject to these regulations when our company becomes an overseas-listed company upon the completion of this offering. Failure to complete SAFE registrations may subject them to fines of up to RMB300,000 for entities and up to RMB50,000 for individuals, and legal sanctions and may also limit our ability to contribute additional capital into our PRC subsidiaries and limit our PRC subsidiaries’ ability to distribute dividends to us. We also face regulatory uncertainties that could restrict our ability to adopt additional incentive plans for our directors, executive officers and employees under PRC law. See “Regulation — Regulations Relating to Share Incentive Plans.”

In addition, SAT has issued certain circulars concerning employee share options and restricted shares. Under these circulars, our employees working in China who exercise share options or are granted restricted shares will be subject to PRC individual income tax. Our PRC subsidiaries have obligations to file documents related to employee share options or restricted shares with relevant tax authorities and to withhold individual income taxes of those employees who exercise their share options. If our employees fail to pay or we fail to withhold their income taxes according to relevant laws and regulations, we may face sanctions imposed by the tax authorities or other PRC government authorities. See “Regulation — Regulations Relating to Share Incentive Plans.”

Failure to comply with PRC laws and regulations on leased property may expose us to potential fines and negatively affect our ability to use the properties we lease.

Our leasehold interests in leased properties have not been registered with the relevant PRC government authorities as required by PRC law, which may expose us to potential fines if we fail to remediate after receiving any notice from the relevant PRC government authorities. Failure to complete the lease registration will not affect the legal effectiveness of the lease agreements according to PRC law, but the real estate administrative authorities may require the parties to the lease agreements to complete lease registration within a prescribed period of time, and the failure to do so may subject the parties to fines from RMB1,000 to RMB10,000 for each of such lease agreements.

Certain lessors of our leased properties have not provided us with valid property ownership certificates or any other documentation proving their right to lease those properties to us. If our lessors are not the owners of the properties or they have not obtained consents from the owners or their lessors or permits from the relevant government authorities, our leases could be invalidated.

As of the date of this prospectus, we are not aware of any actions, claims or investigations threatened against us or our lessors with respect to the defects in our leasehold interests. However, if any of our leases is terminated as a result of challenges by third parties or governmental authorities for lack of title certificates or proof of authorization to lease, we do not expect to be subject to any fines or penalties, but we may be forced to relocate the affected offices and incur additional expenses relating to such relocation.

PRC regulations relating to offshore investment activities by PRC residents may limit our PRC subsidiaries’ ability to change their registered capital or distribute profits to us or otherwise expose us or our PRC resident beneficial owners to liability and penalties under PRC laws.

In July 2014, SAFE promulgated the Circular on Relevant Issues Concerning Foreign Exchange Control on Domestic Residents’ Offshore Investment and Financing and Roundtrip Investment Through Special Purpose Vehicles, or SAFE Circular 37. SAFE Circular 37 requires PRC residents (including PRC individuals and PRC corporate entities as well as foreign individuals that are deemed as PRC residents for foreign exchange administration purpose) to register with SAFE or its local branches in connection with their direct or indirect offshore investment activities. SAFE Circular 37 further requires amendment to the SAFE registrations in the event of any changes with respect to the basic information of the offshore special purpose vehicle, such as change of a PRC individual shareholder, name and operation term, or any significant changes with respect to the offshore special purpose vehicle, such as increase or decrease of capital contribution, share transfer or exchange, or mergers or divisions. SAFE Circular 37 is applicable to our shareholders who are PRC residents and may be applicable to any offshore acquisitions that we make in the future.

If our shareholders who are PRC residents or entities do not complete their registration with the local SAFE branches , our PRC subsidiaries may be prohibited from distributing its profits and proceeds from any reduction in capital, share transfer or liquidation to us, and we may be restricted in our ability to contribute additional capital to our PRC subsidiaries. In February 2015, SAFE promulgated a Circular on Further Simplifying and Improving Foreign Exchange Administration Policy on Direct Investment, or SAFE Circular 13, effective in June 2015. Under SAFE Circular 13, applications for foreign exchange registration of inbound foreign direct investments and outbound overseas direct investments, including those required under SAFE Circular 37, will be filed with qualified banks instead of SAFE The qualified banks will directly examine the applications and accept registrations under the supervision of SAFE.

We have used our best efforts to notify PRC residents or entities who directly or indirectly hold shares in our Cayman Islands holding company and who are known to us as being PRC residents to complete the foreign exchange registrations. However, we may not be informed of the identities of all the PRC residents or entities holding direct or indirect interest in our company, nor can we compel our beneficial owners to comply with SAFE registration requirements. As of the date of this prospectus, Mr. Peng Shen, Mr. Guang Yang, Mr. Yao Hu and 20 other PRC residents known to us that currently hold direct or indirect ownership interests in our company have completed the initial registrations with the local SAFE branch or qualified banks as required by SAFE Circular 37. We cannot assure you that all shareholders or beneficial owners of ours who are PRC residents, including the beneficiaries of certain trusts directly or indirectly holding interest in our company have complied with, and will in the future make, obtain or update any applicable registrations or approvals required by, SAFE regulations.

The failure or inability of such shareholders or beneficial owners to comply with SAFE Circular 37 or other SAFE regulations, or failure by us to amend the foreign exchange registrations of our PRC subsidiaries, could subject us to fines or legal sanctions, restrict our overseas or cross-border investment activities, limit our PRC subsidiaries’ ability to make distributions or pay dividends to us or affect our ownership structure. Moreover, failure to comply with the various foreign exchange registration requirements described above could result in liability under PRC law for circumventing applicable foreign exchange restrictions. As a result, our business operations and our ability to distribute profits to you could be materially and adversely affected.

Furthermore, as these foreign exchange regulations are still relatively new and their interpretation and implementation has been constantly evolving, it is unclear how these regulations,

and any future regulation concerning offshore or cross-border transactions, will be interpreted, amended and implemented by the relevant government authorities. For example, we may be subject to a more stringent review and approval process with respect to our foreign exchange activities, such as remittance of dividends and foreign currency-denominated borrowings, which may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if we decide to acquire a PRC domestic company, we cannot assure you that we or the owners of such company, as the case may be, will be able to obtain the necessary approvals or complete the necessary filings and registrations required by the foreign exchange regulations. This may restrict our ability to implement our acquisition strategy and could adversely affect our business and prospects.

We may be materially adversely affected if our shareholders and beneficial owners who are PRC entities fail to comply with the relevant PRC overseas investment regulations.

On December 26, 2017, the NDRC promulgated the Administrative Measures on Overseas Investments of Enterprises, or NDRC Order No. 11, which took effect as of March 1, 2018. According to NDRC Order No. 11, non-sensitive overseas investment projects are subject to record-filing requirements with NDRC. On September 6, 2014, MOFCOM promulgated the Administrative Measures on Overseas Investments, which took effect as of October 6, 2014. According to this regulation, overseas investments of PRC enterprises that involve non-sensitive countries and regions and non-sensitive industries are subject to record-filing requirements with MOFCOM. According to the Circular of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Issuing the Regulations on Foreign Exchange Administration of the Overseas Direct Investment of Domestic Institutions, which was promulgated by SAFE on July 13, 2009 and took effect on August 1, 2009, PRC enterprises must register for overseas direct investment with a local SAFE branch.

We may not be fully informed of the identities of all our shareholders or beneficial owners who are PRC entities, and we cannot provide any assurance that all of our shareholders and beneficial owners who are PRC entities will comply with our request to complete the overseas direct investment procedures under the aforementioned regulations or other related rules in a timely manner, or at all. If they fail to complete the filings or registrations required by the overseas direct investment regulations, the relevant authorities may order them to suspend or cease the implementation of such investment and make corrections within a specified time, which may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may rely on dividends and other distributions on equity paid by our PRC subsidiaries to fund any cash and financing requirements we may have, and any limitation on the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to make payments to us could have a material and adverse effect on our ability to conduct our business.

We are a Cayman Islands holding company and we may rely principally on dividends and other distributions on equity from our PRC subsidiaries for our cash requirements, including the funds necessary to pay dividends and other cash distributions to our shareholders for services of any debt we may incur. If our PRC subsidiaries incurs debt on its own behalf in the future, the instruments governing the debt may restrict its ability to pay dividends or make other distributions to us. Under PRC laws and regulations, our PRC subsidiaries, which are foreign-owned enterprises, may pay dividends only out of their respective accumulated profits as determined in accordance with PRC accounting standards and regulations. In addition, a foreign-owned enterprise is required to set aside at least 10% of its accumulated after-tax profits each year, if any, to fund a certain statutory reserve fund, until the aggregate amount of such fund reaches 50% of its registered capital. Such reserve funds cannot be distributed to us as dividends. At its discretion, a foreign-owned enterprise may allocate a portion of its after-tax profits based on PRC accounting standards to an enterprise expansion fund, or a staff welfare and bonus fund.

Our PRC subsidiaries generate essentially all of their revenue in Renminbi, which is not freely convertible into other currencies. As a result, any restriction on currency exchange may limit the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to use their Renminbi revenues to pay dividends to us.

The PRC government may continue to strengthen its capital controls, and more restrictions and substantial vetting process may be put forward by SAFE for cross-border transactions falling under both the current account and the capital account. Any limitation on the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to pay dividends or make other kinds of payments to us could materially and adversely limit our ability to grow, make investments or acquisitions that could be beneficial to our business, pay dividends, or otherwise fund and conduct our business.

In addition, the Enterprise Income Tax Law and its implementation rules provide that a withholding tax rate of up to 10% will be applicable to dividends payable by Chinese companies to non-PRC-resident enterprises unless otherwise exempted or reduced according to treaties or arrangements between the PRC central government and governments of other countries or regions where the non-PRC resident enterprises are incorporated.

PRC regulation of loans to and direct investment in PRC entities by offshore holding companies may delay us from using the proceeds of this offering to make loans or additional capital contributions to our PRC subsidiaries and to make loans to our VIEs, which could materially and adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.

Any funds we transfer to our PRC subsidiaries, either as a shareholder loan or as an increase in registered capital, as well as any loans we provide to our VIEs, are subject to approval by or registration with relevant governmental authorities in China. According to the relevant PRC regulations on foreign invested enterprises in China, capital contributions to our PRC subsidiaries are subject to the registration with the State Administration for Market Regulation or its local counterpart and registration with a local bank authorized by SAFE. In addition, (i) any foreign loan procured by our PRC subsidiaries is required to be registered with the SAFE or its local branches and (ii) any of our PRC subsidiaries may not procure loans which exceed the difference between its total investment amount and registered capital or, as an alternative, only procure loans subject to the calculation approach and limitation as provided by the People’s Bank of China. Additionally, any medium or long-term loans to be provided by us to our VIEs must be registered with the NDRC and SAFE or its local branches. We may not be able to obtain these government approvals or complete such registrations in a timely manner, or at all, with respect to future capital contributions or foreign loans by us to our PRC subsidiaries or loans by us to our VIEs. If we fail to receive such approvals or complete such registration or filing, our ability to use the proceeds of this offering to capitalize our PRC operations may be negatively affected, which could adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.

Fluctuations in exchange rates could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations and the value of your investment.

The conversion of Renminbi into foreign currencies, including U.S. dollars, is based on rates set by the People’s Bank of China. The Renminbi has fluctuated against the U.S. dollar, at times significantly and unpredictably. The value of Renminbi against the U.S. dollar and other currencies is affected by changes in China’s political and economic conditions and by China’s foreign exchange policies, among other things. We cannot assure you that Renminbi will not appreciate or depreciate significantly in value against the U.S. dollar in the future. It is difficult to predict how market forces or PRC or U.S. government policy may impact the exchange rate between Renminbi and the U.S. dollar in the future.

Substantially all of our income and expenses are denominated in Renminbi and our reporting currency is Renminbi. Significant revaluation of the Renminbi may have a material and adverse

effect on your investment. For example, to the extent that we need to convert U.S. dollars we receive from our initial public offering into Renminbi for our operations, appreciation of the Renminbi against the U.S. dollar would reduce the Renminbi amount we would receive from the conversion. Conversely, if we decide to convert our Renminbi into U.S. dollars for the purpose of paying dividends or for other business purposes, appreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Renminbi would reduce the U.S. dollar amount available to us.

Very limited hedging options are available in China to reduce our exposure to exchange rate fluctuations. To date, we have not entered into any material hedging transactions to reduce our exposure to foreign currency exchange risk. While we may decide to enter into hedging transactions in the future, the availability and effectiveness of these hedges may be limited and we may not be able to adequately hedge our exposure or at all. In addition, our currency exchange losses may be magnified by PRC exchange control regulations that restrict our ability to convert Renminbi into foreign currency.

Governmental control of currency conversion may limit our ability to utilize our revenues effectively and affect the value of your investment.

The PRC government imposes controls on the convertibility of the Renminbi into foreign currencies and, in certain cases, the remittance of currency out of China. We receive substantially all of our revenues in Renminbi. Under our current corporate structure, our Cayman Islands holding company may rely on dividend payments from our PRC subsidiaries to fund any cash and financing requirements we may have. Under existing PRC foreign exchange regulations, payments of current account items, including profit distributions, interest payments and trade and service-related foreign exchange transactions, can be made in foreign currencies without prior approval of SAFE, by complying with certain procedural requirements. Specifically, under the existing exchange restrictions, without prior approval of SAFE, cash generated from the operations of our PRC subsidiaries in China may be used to pay dividends to our company. However, approval from or registration with appropriate government authorities is required where Renminbi is to be converted into foreign currency and remitted out of China to pay capital expenses such as the repayment of loans denominated in foreign currencies. As a result, we need to obtain SAFE approval to use cash generated from the operations of our PRC subsidiaries and VIEs to pay off their respective debt in a currency other than Renminbi owed to entities outside China, or to make other capital expenditure payments outside China in a currency other than Renminbi.

In light of the flood of capital outflows of China in 2016 due to the weakening Renminbi, the PRC government has imposed more restrictive foreign exchange policies and stepped up scrutiny of major outbound capital movement including overseas direct investment. More restrictions and substantial vetting process are put in place by SAFE to regulate cross-border transactions falling under the capital account. If any of our shareholders regulated by such policies fails to satisfy the applicable overseas direct investment filing or approval requirement timely or at all, it may be subject to penalties from the relevant PRC authorities. The PRC government may at its discretion further restrict access in the future to foreign currencies for current account transactions. If the foreign exchange control system prevents us from obtaining sufficient foreign currencies to satisfy our foreign currency demands, we may not be able to pay dividends in foreign currencies to our shareholders, including holders of the ADSs.

Our failure to fully comply with PRC labor-related laws may expose us to potential penalties.

Companies operating in China are required to participate in various government sponsored employee benefit plans, including certain social insurance, housing funds and other welfare-oriented payment obligations, and contribute to the plans in amounts equal to certain percentages

of salaries, including bonuses and allowances, of our employees up to a maximum amount specified by the local government from time to time at locations where we operate our businesses. The requirement of employee benefit plans has not been implemented consistently by the local governments in China given the different levels of economic development in different locations. We did not pay, or were not able to pay, certain past social security and housing fund contributions in strict compliance with the relevant PRC regulations for and on behalf of our employees. Although we have recorded accruals for estimated underpaid amounts and late payment in our financial statements, we may be subject to penalties for our failure to make payments in accordance with the applicable PRC laws and regulations. We may be required to make up the contributions for these plans as well as to pay late fees and fines. We have not made any accruals for penalties that may be imposed by the relevant PRC government authorities in the financial statements. If we are subject to fines in relation to the underpaid employee benefits, our financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.

Our ADSs may be delisted under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act if the PCAOB is unable to inspect auditors who are located in China. The delisting of our ADSs, or the threat of their being delisted, may materially and adversely affect the value of your investment. Additionally, the inability of the PCAOB to conduct inspections deprives our investors with the benefits of such inspections.

The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, or the HFCA Act, was enacted on December 18, 2020. The HFCA Act states if the SEC determines that we have filed audit reports issued by a registered public accounting firm that has not been subject to inspection by the PCAOB for three consecutive years beginning in 2021, the SEC shall prohibit our shares or ADSs from being traded on a national securities exchange or in the over the counter trading market in the U.S.

Our auditor, the independent registered public accounting firm that issues the audit report included elsewhere in this prospectus, as an auditor of companies that are traded publicly in the United States and a firm registered with the PCAOB, is subject to laws in the United States pursuant to which the PCAOB conducts regular inspections to assess its compliance with the applicable professional standards. Since our auditor is located in China, a jurisdiction where the PCAOB has been unable to conduct inspections without the approval of the Chinese authorities, our auditor is currently not inspected by the PCAOB.

On March 24, 2021, the SEC adopted interim final rules relating to the implementation of certain disclosure and documentation requirements of the HFCA Act. We will be required to comply with these rules if the SEC identifies us as having a “non-inspection” year under a process to be subsequently established by the SEC. The SEC is assessing how to implement other requirements of the HFCA Act, including the listing and trading prohibition requirements described above.

The SEC may propose additional rules or guidance that could impact us if our auditor is not subject to PCAOB inspection. For example, on August 6, 2020, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, or the PWG, issued the Report on Protecting United States Investors from Significant Risks from Chinese Companies to the then President of the United States. This report recommended the SEC implement five recommendations to address companies from jurisdictions that do not provide the PCAOB with sufficient access to fulfil its statutory mandate. Some of the concepts of these recommendations were implemented with the enactment of the HFCA Act. However, some of the recommendations were more stringent than the HFCA Act. For example, if a company was not subject to PCAOB inspection, the report recommended that the transition period before a company would be delisted would end on January 1, 2022.

The SEC has announced that the SEC staff is preparing a consolidated proposal for the rules regarding the implementation of the HFCA Act and to address the recommendations in the PWG

report. It is unclear when the SEC will complete its rulemaking and when such rules will become effective and what, if any, of the PWG recommendations will be adopted. The implications of this possible regulation in addition to the requirements of the HFCA Act are uncertain. Such uncertainty could cause the market price of our ADSs to be materially and adversely affected, and our securities could be delisted or prohibited from being traded “over-the-counter” earlier than would be required by the HFCA Act. If our securities are unable to be listed on another securities exchange by then, such a delisting would substantially impair your ability to sell or purchase our ADSs when you wish to do so, and the risk and uncertainty associated with a potential delisting would have a negative impact on the price of our ADSs.

The PCAOB’s inability to conduct inspections in China prevents it from fully evaluating the audits and quality control procedures of our independent registered public accounting firm. As a result, we and investors in our ordinary shares are deprived of the benefits of such PCAOB inspections. The inability of the PCAOB to conduct inspections of auditors in China makes it more difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of our independent registered public accounting firm’s audit procedures or quality control procedures as compared to auditors outside of China that are subject to the PCAOB inspections, which could cause investors and potential investors in our stock to lose confidence in our auditor’s audit procedures and reported financial information and the quality of our financial statements.

In May 2013, the PCAOB announced that it had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding on Enforcement Cooperation with the CSRC and the PRC Ministry of Finance, which establishes a cooperative framework between the parties for the production and exchange of audit documents relevant to investigations undertaken by the PCAOB in the PRC or by the CSRC or the PRC Ministry of Finance in the United States. The PCAOB continues to be in discussions with the CSRC and the PRC Ministry of Finance to permit joint inspections in the PRC of audit firms that are registered with the PCAOB and audit Chinese companies that trade on U.S. exchanges.

Starting in 2011 the PRC-based “big four” accounting firms, including our independent registered public accounting firm, were affected by a conflict between U.S. and Chinese law. Specifically, for certain U.S.-listed companies operating and audited in mainland China, the SEC and the PCAOB sought to obtain from the Chinese firms access to their audit work papers and related documents. The firms were, however, advised and directed that under Chinese law, they could not respond directly to the U.S. regulators on those requests, and that requests by foreign regulators for access to such papers in China had to be channeled through the CSRC.

In late 2012, this impasse led the SEC to commence administrative proceedings under Rule 102(e) of its Rules of Practice and also under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 against the Chinese accounting firms, including our independent registered public accounting firm. A first instance trial of the proceedings in July 2013 in the SEC’s internal administrative court resulted in an adverse judgment against the firms. The administrative law judge proposed penalties on the firms including a temporary suspension of their right to practice before the SEC, although that proposed penalty did not take effect pending review by the Commissioners of the SEC. On February 6, 2015, before a review by the Commissioner had taken place, the firms reached a settlement with the SEC. Under the settlement, the SEC accepts that future requests by the SEC for the production of documents will normally be made to the CSRC. The firms will receive matching Section 106 requests, and are required to abide by a detailed set of procedures with respect to such requests, which in substance require them to facilitate production via the CSRC. If they fail to meet specified criteria, the SEC

retains authority to impose a variety of additional remedial measures on the firms depending on the nature of the failure. Remedies for any future noncompliance could include, as appropriate, an automatic six-month bar on a single firm’s performance of certain audit work, commencement of a new proceeding against a firm, or, in extreme cases, the resumption of the current proceeding against all four firms. If additional remedial measures are imposed on the PRC-based “big four” accounting firms, including our independent registered public accounting firm, in administrative proceedings brought by the SEC alleging the firms’ failure to meet specific criteria set by the SEC with respect to requests for the production of documents, we could be unable to timely file future financial statements in compliance with the requirements of the Exchange Act.In the event that the SEC restarts the administrative proceedings, depending upon the final outcome, listed companies in the United States with major PRC operations may find it difficult or impossible to retain auditors in respect of their operations in the PRC, which could result in financial statements being determined not to be in compliance with the requirements of the Exchange Act, including possible delisting. Moreover, any negative news about any such future proceedings against these audit firms may cause investor uncertainty regarding China-based, U.S.-listed companies and the market price of our ADSs may be adversely affected.

If our independent registered public accounting firm was denied, even temporarily, the ability to practice before the SEC and we were unable to timely find another registered public accounting firm to audit and issue an opinion on our financial statements, our financial statements could be determined to be not in compliance with the requirements of the Exchange Act. Such a determination could ultimately lead to the delisting of the ADSs or deregistration from the SEC, or both, which would substantially reduce or effectively terminate the trading of the ADSs in the United States.

The current tension in international trade, particularly with regard to U.S. and China trade policies, may adversely impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Although cross-border business may not be an area of our focus, if we plan to expand our business internationally in the future, any unfavorable government policies on international trade, such as capital controls or tariffs, may affect the demand for our services, impact our competitive position, or prevent us from being able to conduct business in certain countries. If any new tariffs, legislation, or regulations are implemented, or if existing trade agreements are renegotiated, such changes could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Recently, there have been heightened tensions in international economic relations, such as the one between the United States and China. The U.S. government has recently imposed, and has recently proposed to impose additional, new, or higher tariffs on certain products imported from China to penalize China for what it characterizes as unfair trade practices. China has responded by imposing, and proposing to impose additional, new, or higher tariffs on certain products imported from the United States. Following mutual retaliatory actions for months, on January 15, 2020, the United States and China entered into the Economic and Trade Agreement Between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China as a phase one trade deal, effective on February 14, 2020.

Although the direct impact of the current international trade tension, and any escalation of such tension, on the industries in which we operate is uncertain, the negative impact on general, economic, political and social conditions may adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to Our ADSs and This Offering

There has been no public market for our shares or ADSs prior to this offering, and you may not be able to resell our ADSs at or above the price you paid, or at all.

Prior to this initial public offering, there has been no public market for our shares or ADSs. We have applied to list our ADSs on the New York Stock Exchange. Our shares will not be listed on any exchange or quoted for trading on any over-the-counter trading system If an active trading market for our ADSs does not develop after this offering, the market price and liquidity of our ADSs will be materially and adversely affected.

Negotiations with the underwriters will determine the initial public offering price for our ADSs which may bear no relationship to their market price after the initial public offering. We cannot assure you that an active trading market for our ADSs will develop or that the market price of our ADSs will not decline below the initial public offering price.

The trading price of the ADSs is likely to be volatile, which could result in substantial losses to investors.

The trading price of the ADSs is likely to be volatile and could fluctuate widely due to factors beyond our control. This may happen because of broad market and industry factors, including the performance and fluctuation of the market prices of other companies with business operations located mainly in China that have listed their securities in the United States. In addition to market and industry factors, the price and trading volume for the ADSs may be highly volatile for factors specific to our own operations, including the following:

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variations in our revenues, earnings, cash flow;

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fluctuations in operating metrics;

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announcements of new investments, acquisitions, strategic partnerships or joint ventures by us or our competitors;

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announcements of new solutions and services and expansions by us or our competitors;

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termination or non-renewal of contracts or any other material adverse change in our relationship with our key customers or strategic investors;

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changes in financial estimates by securities analysts;

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detrimental negative publicity about us, our competitors or our industry;

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additions or departures of key personnel;

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release of lockup or other transfer restrictions on our outstanding equity securities or sales of additional equity securities;

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regulatory developments affecting us or our industry; and

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potential litigation or regulatory investigations.

Any of these factors may result in large and sudden changes in the volume and price at which the ADSs will trade. Furthermore, the stock market in general experiences price and volume fluctuations that are often unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of companies like us. These broad market and industry fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our ADSs. Volatility or a lack of positive performance in our ADS price may also adversely affect our ability to retain key employees, most of whom have been granted share incentives.

In the past, shareholders of public companies have often brought securities class action suits against companies following periods of instability in the market price of their securities. If we were

involved in a class action suit, it could divert a significant amount of our management’s attention and other resources from our business and operations and require us to incur significant expenses to defend the suit, which could harm our results of operations. Any such class action suit, whether or not successful, could harm our reputation and restrict our ability to raise capital in the future. In addition, if a claim is successfully made against us, we may be required to pay significant damages, which could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

The trading market for the ADSs will be influenced by research or reports that industry or securities analysts publish about our business. If one or more analysts who cover us downgrade the ADSs, the market price for the ADSs would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease to cover us or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which, in turn, could cause the market price or trading volume for the ADSs to decline.

Our dual-class voting structure will limit your ability to influence corporate matters and could discourage others from pursuing any change of control transactions that holders of our Class A ordinary shares and ADSs may view as beneficial.

Our authorized and issued ordinary shares will be divided into Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares immediately prior the completion of this offering (with certain shares remaining undesignated, with power for our directors to designate and issue such classes of shares as they think fit). Holders of Class A ordinary shares will be entitled to one vote per share, while holders of Class B ordinary shares will be entitled to nine votes per share. We will issue Class A ordinary shares represented by our ADSs in this offering. Each Class B ordinary share is convertible into one Class A ordinary share at any time by the holder thereof, while Class A ordinary shares are not convertible into Class B ordinary shares under any circumstances. In addition, the Class B ordinary shares held by Mr. Peng Shen or his affiliated entities shall be automatically immediately converted into the same number of Class A ordinary shares in the event that Mr. Shen ceases to be employed by and ceases to act as a director of our Company.

Immediately prior to the completion of this offering, Mr. Peng Shen will beneficially own all of our issued Class B ordinary shares. These Class B ordinary shares will constitute approximately % of our total issued and outstanding share capital immediately after the completion of this offering and % of the aggregate voting power of our total issued and outstanding share capital immediately after the completion of this offering due to the disparate voting powers associated with our dual-class share structure, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their over-allotment option. As a result of the dual-class share structure and the concentration of ownership, holders of Class B ordinary shares will have considerable influence over matters such as decisions regarding mergers and consolidations, election of directors, and other significant corporate actions. Such holders may take actions that are not in the best interest of us or our other shareholders. This concentration of ownership may discourage, delay, or prevent a change in control of our company, which could have the effect of depriving our other shareholders of the opportunity to receive a premium for their shares as part of a sale of our company and may reduce the price of our ADSs. This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters and could discourage others from pursuing any potential merger, takeover, or other change of control transactions that holders of Class A ordinary shares and ADSs may view as beneficial.

Our dual-class voting structure may render the ADSs representing our Class A ordinary shares ineligible for inclusion in certain stock market indices, and thus adversely affect the trading price and liquidity of the ADSs.

We cannot predict whether our dual-class share structure with different voting rights will result in a lower or more volatile market price of the ADSs, adverse publicity, or other adverse consequences. Certain index providers have announced restrictions on including companies with multi-class share structures in certain of their indices. For example, S&P Dow Jones and FTSE Russell have changed their eligibility criteria for inclusion of shares of public companies on certain indices, including the S&P 500, to exclude companies with multiple classes of shares and companies whose public shareholders hold no more than 5% of total voting power from being added to such indices. As a result, our dual-class voting structure may prevent the inclusion of the ADSs representing our Class A ordinary shares in such indices, which could adversely affect the trading price and liquidity of the ADSs representing our Class A ordinary shares. In addition, several shareholder advisory firms have announced their opposition to the use of multiple class structure and our dual-class structure may cause shareholder advisory firms to publish negative commentary about our corporate governance, in which case the market price and liquidity of the ADSs could be adversely affected.

We will be a “controlled company” within the meaning of the NYSE Listed Company Manual and, as a result, may rely on exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements that provide protection to shareholders of other companies.

Following the completion of this offering, we will be a “controlled company” as defined under the NYSE Listed Company Manual because Mr. Peng Shen, our chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer, will own more than 50% of our total voting power. For so long as we remain a “controlled company” under that definition, we are permitted to elect to rely, and may rely, on exemptions from certain corporate governance rules, including an exemption from the rule that a majority of our board of directors must be independent directors or that we have to establish a nominating committee and a compensation committee composed entirely of independent directors. In the event that we elect to rely on one or more of these exemptions, you will not have the same protection afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to these corporate governance requirements.

We currently do not expect to pay dividends in the foreseeable future after this offering and you must rely on price appreciation of our ADSs for return on your investment.

We currently intend to retain most, if not all, of our available funds and any future earnings after this offering to fund the development and growth of our business. As a result, we do not expect to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Therefore, you should not rely on an investment in our ADSs as a source for any future dividend income.

Our board of directors has complete discretion as to whether to distribute dividends, subject to certain requirements of Cayman Islands law. In addition, our shareholders may by ordinary resolution declare a dividend, but no dividend may exceed the amount recommended by our directors. Under Cayman Islands law, a Cayman Islands exempted company may pay a dividend out of either profit or share premium account, provided that in no circumstances may a dividend be paid if this would result in the company being unable to pay its debts as they fall due in the ordinary course of business. Even if our board of directors decides to declare and pay dividends, the timing, amount and form of future dividends, if any, will depend on our future results of operations and cash flow, our capital requirements and surplus, the amount of distributions, if any, received by us from our subsidiaries, our financial condition, contractual restrictions and other factors deemed relevant by our board of directors. Accordingly, the return on your investment in our ADSs will likely

depend entirely upon any future price appreciation of our ADSs. There is no guarantee that our ADSs will appreciate in value after this offering or even maintain the price at which you purchased the ADSs. You may not realize a return on your investment in our ADSs and you may even lose your entire investment in our ADSs.

Because our initial public offering price is substantially higher than our net tangible book value per share, you will experience immediate and substantial dilution.

If you purchase ADSs in this offering, you will pay more for your ADSs than the amount paid by our existing shareholders for their ordinary shares on a per ADS basis. As a result, you will experience immediate and substantial dilution, representing the difference between the initial public offering price of per ADS, and our adjusted net tangible book value per ADS, after giving effect to our sale of the ADSs offered in this offering. In addition, you may experience further dilution to the extent that our Class A ordinary shares are issued upon the exercise or vesting, as the case may be, of our share incentive awards. See “Dilution” for a more complete description of how the value of your investment in the ADSs will be diluted upon completion of this offering.

We have not determined a specific use for a portion of the net proceeds from this offering and we may use these proceeds in ways with which you may not agree.

We have not determined a specific use for a portion of the net proceeds of this offering, and our management will have considerable discretion in deciding how to apply these proceeds. You will not have the opportunity to assess whether the proceeds are being used appropriately before you make your investment decision. You must rely on the judgment of our management regarding the application of the net proceeds of this offering. We cannot assure you that the net proceeds will be used in a manner that would improve our results of operations or increase the ADS price, nor that these net proceeds will be placed only in investments that generate income or appreciate in value.

Substantial future sales or perceived potential sales of our ADSs in the public market could cause the price of our ADSs to decline.

Sales of our ADSs in the public market after this offering, or the perception that these sales could occur, could cause the market price of our ADSs to decline. All ADSs sold in this offering will be freely transferable without restriction or additional registration under the Securities Act. The remaining ordinary shares issued and outstanding after this offering will be available for sale, upon the expiration of the lock-up period in connection with this offering, subject to volume and other restrictions as applicable under Rules 144 and 701 under the Securities Act. Any or all of these shares may be released prior to the expiration of the lock-up period at the discretion of the representatives of the underwriters of this offering. To the extent shares are released before the expiration of the lock-up period and sold into the market, the market price of our ADSs could decline.

After completion of this offering, certain holders of our Class A ordinary shares may cause us to register under the Securities Act the sale of their shares, subject to the lock-up period in connection with this offering. Registration of these shares under the Securities Act would result in ADSs representing these shares becoming freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act immediately upon the effectiveness of the registration. Sales of these registered shares in the form of ADSs in the public market could cause the price of our ADSs to decline.

In addition, as of the date of this prospectus, options to purchase a total of 285,474,868 Class A ordinary shares are outstanding under the 2018 Share Incentive Plan. To the extent the Class A ordinary shares are issued and substantial amounts of such shares are sold into the market, the market price of our ADSs could decline.

Our post-offering memorandum and articles of association contain anti-takeover provisions that could have a material adverse effect on the rights of holders of our Class A ordinary shares and the ADSs.

We will adopt a post-offering memorandum and articles of association that will become effective immediately prior to the completion of this offering. Our post-offering memorandum and articles of association contain provisions to limit the ability of others to acquire control of our company or cause us to engage in change-of-control transactions. These provisions could have the effect of depriving our shareholders of an opportunity to sell their shares at a premium over prevailing market prices by discouraging third parties from seeking to obtain control of our company in a tender offer or similar transaction. Our board of directors has the authority, without further action by our shareholders, to issue preferred shares in one or more series and to fix their designations, powers, preferences, privileges and relative participating, optional or special rights and the qualifications, limitations or restrictions, including dividend rights, conversion rights, voting rights, terms of redemption and liquidation preferences, any or all of which may be greater than the rights associated with our Class A ordinary shares, including Class A ordinary shares represented by ADSs. Preferred shares could be issued quickly with terms calculated to delay or prevent a change in control of our company or make removal of management more difficult. If our board of directors decides to issue preferred shares, the price of the ADSs may fall and the voting and other rights of the holders of our Class A ordinary shares and the ADSs may be materially and adversely affected.

Our post-offering memorandum and articles of association and the deposit agreement provide that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (or, if the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a particular dispute, the state courts in New York County, New York) is the exclusive judicial forum within the U.S. for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising out of or relating in any way to the federal securities laws of the United States, and any suit, action or proceeding arising out of or relating in any way to the ADSs or the deposit agreement, which could limit the ability of holders of our Class A ordinary shares, the ADSs or other securities to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us, our directors and officers, the depositary, and potentially others.

Our post-offering memorandum and articles of association provide that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (or, if the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a particular dispute, the state courts in New York County, New York) is the exclusive forum within the United States for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising out of or relating in any way to the federal securities laws of the United States, regardless of whether such legal suit, action, or proceeding also involves parties other than our company. The deposit agreement provides that the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (or, if the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a particular dispute, the state courts in New York County, New York) shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any suit, action or proceeding against or involving us or the depositary, arising out of or relating in any way to the deposit agreement or the transactions contemplated thereby or by virtue of owning the ADSs. The enforceability of similar federal court choice of forum provisions in other companies’ organizational documents has been challenged in legal proceedings in the United States, and it is possible that a court could find this type of provision to be inapplicable or unenforceable. If a court were to find the federal choice of forum provision contained in our post-offering memorandum and articles of association or the deposit agreement to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions. If upheld, the forum selection clause in our post-offering memorandum and articles of association, as well as the

forum selection provision in the deposit agreement, may limit a security-holder’s ability to bring a claim against us, our directors and officers, the depositary, and potentially others in his or her preferred judicial forum, and this limitation may discourage such lawsuits. Holders of our shares or the ADSs will not be deemed to have waived our compliance with the federal securities laws and the regulations promulgated thereunder pursuant to the exclusive forum provision in the post-offering memorandum and articles of association and deposit agreement. In addition, the forum selection provision of the deposit agreement does not effect the right of an ADS holder or the depositary to require any claim against us, including a federal securities law claim, to be submitted to arbitration or to commence an action in any court in aid of that arbitration provision or to enter judgment upon or enforce any arbitration award.

Holders of ADSs do not have the same rights as our registered shareholders. As a holder of ADSs, you will not have any direct right to attend general meetings of our shareholders or to cast any votes at such meetings. You will only be able to exercise the voting rights attached to the Class A ordinary shares underlying your ADSs indirectly by giving voting instructions to the depositary in accordance with the provisions of the deposit agreement. Where any matter is to be put to a vote at a general meeting, then upon receipt of your voting instructions, the depositary will try, as far as is practicable, to vote the underlying Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs in accordance with your instructions. You will not be able to directly exercise your right to vote with respect to the underlying Class A ordinary shares unless you cancel and withdraw the shares and become the registered holder of such shares prior to the record date for the general meeting.

When a general meeting is convened, you may not receive sufficient advance notice of the fleeting to withdraw the Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs and become the registered holder of such shares to allow you to attend the general meeting and to vote directly with respect to any specific matter or resolution to be considered and voted upon at the general meeting. In addition, under our post-offering memorandum and articles of association that will become effective immediately prior to completion of this offering, for the purposes of determining those shareholders who are entitled to attend and vote at any general meeting, our directors may close our register of members and/or fix in advance a record date for such meeting, and such closure of our register of members or the setting of such a record date may prevent you from withdrawing the underlying Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs and from becoming the registered holder of such shares prior to the record date, so that you would not be able to attend the general meeting or to vote directly. Where any matter is to be put to a vote at a general meeting, upon our instruction the depositary will notify you of the upcoming vote and will arrange to deliver our voting materials to you. We cannot assure you that you will receive the voting materials in time to ensure that you can instruct the depositary to vote the underlying Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs.

In addition, the depositary and its agents are not responsible for failing to carry out voting instructions or for their manner of carrying out your voting instructions. This means that you may not be able to exercise your right to direct how the underlying Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs are voted and you may have no legal remedy if the underlying Class A ordinary shares represented by your ADSs are not voted as you requested. In addition, in your capacity as an ADS holder, you will not be able to call a shareholders’ meeting.

Further, under the deposit agreement for the ADSs, if you do not vote, the depositary will give us a discretionary proxy to vote the Class A ordinary shares underlying your ADSs at shareholders’ meetings unless:

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we have instructed the depositary that we do not wish a discretionary proxy to be given;

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we have informed the depositary that there is substantial opposition as to a matter to be voted on at the meeting;

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a matter to be voted on at the meeting would have a material adverse impact on shareholders; or

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the voting at the meeting is to be made on a show of hands.

The effect of this discretionary proxy is that you cannot prevent our Class A ordinary shares underlying your ADSs from being voted, except under the circumstances described above. This may adversely affect your interests and make it more difficult for shareholders to influence the management of our company. Holders of our Class A ordinary shares are not subject to this discretionary proxy.

You may be subject to limitations on transfer of your ADSs.

Your ADSs are transferable on the books of the depositary. However, the depositary may close its books at any time or from time to time when it deems expedient in connection with the performance of its duties. The depositary may close its books from time to time for a number of reasons, including in connection with corporate events such as a rights offering, during which time the depositary needs to maintain an exact number of ADS holders on its books for a specified period. The depositary may also close its books in emergencies, and on weekends and public holidays. The depositary may refuse to deliver, transfer or register transfers of the ADSs generally when our share register or the books of the depositary are closed, or at any time if we or the depositary thinks it is advisable to do so because of any requirement of law or of any government or governmental body, or under any provision of the deposit agreement, or for any other reason.

You may experience dilution of your holdings due to inability to participate in rights offerings.

We may, from time to time, distribute rights to our shareholders, including rights to acquire securities. Under the deposit agreement, the depositary will not distribute rights to holders of ADSs unless the distribution and sale of rights and the securities to which these rights relate are either exempt from registration under the Securities Act with respect to all holders of ADSs, or are registered under the provisions of the Securities Act. The depositary may, but is not required to, attempt to sell these undistributed rights to third parties, and may allow the rights to lapse. We may be unable to establish an exemption from registration under the Securities Act, and we are under no obligation to file a registration statement with respect to these rights or underlying securities or to endeavor to have a registration statement declared effective. Accordingly, holders of ADSs may be unable to participate in our rights offerings and may experience dilution of their holdings as a result.

You may face difficulties in protecting your interests, and your ability to protect your rights through U.S. courts may be limited, because we are incorporated under Cayman Islands law.

We are an exempted company incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands. Our corporate affairs are governed by our memorandum and articles of association, the Companies Act (2021 Revision) of the Cayman Islands and the common law of the Cayman Islands. The rights of shareholders to take action against our directors, actions by our minority shareholders and the

fiduciary duties of our directors owed to us under Cayman Islands law are to a large extent governed by the common law of the Cayman Islands. The common law of the Cayman Islands is derived in part from comparatively limited judicial precedent in the Cayman Islands as well as from the common law of England, the decisions of whose courts are of persuasive authority, but are not binding, on a court in the Cayman Islands. The rights of our shareholders and the fiduciary duties of our directors owed to us under Cayman Islands law are not as clearly established as they would be under statutes or judicial precedent in some jurisdictions in the United States. In particular, the Cayman Islands has a less developed body of securities laws than the United States. Some U.S. states, such as Delaware, have more fully developed and judicially interpreted bodies of corporate law than the Cayman Islands. In addition, Cayman Islands companies may not have the standing to initiate a shareholder derivative action in a federal court of the United States.

Shareholders of Cayman Islands exempted companies like us have no general rights under Cayman Islands law to inspect corporate records (other than the memorandum and articles of association and any special resolutions passed by such companies, and the registers of mortgages and charges of such companies) or to obtain copies of lists of shareholders of these companies. Under Cayman Islands law, the names of our current directors can be obtained from a search conducted at the Registrar of Companies. Our directors have discretion under our memorandum and articles of association that will become effective immediately prior to completion of this offering to determine whether or not, and under what conditions, our corporate records may be inspected by our shareholders, but are not obliged to make them available to our shareholders. This may make it more difficult for you to obtain the information needed to establish any facts necessary for a shareholder motion or to solicit proxies from other shareholders in connection with a proxy contest.

As a result of all of the above, our public shareholders may have more difficulty in protecting their interests in the face of actions taken by management, members of our board of directors or controlling shareholders than they would as public shareholders of a company incorporated in the United States. For a discussion of significant differences between the provisions of the Companies Act of the Cayman Islands and the laws applicable to companies incorporated in the United States and their shareholders, see “Description of Share Capital — Our Post-Offering Memorandum and Articles of Association — Differences in Corporate Law.”

Certain judgments obtained against us by our shareholders may not be enforceable.

We are a Cayman Islands exempted company and substantially all of our assets are located outside of the United States. All of our current operations are conducted in China. In addition, substantially all of our current directors and officers are nationals and residents of countries other than the United States. As a result, it may be difficult or impossible for you to bring an action against us or against these individuals in the United States in the event that you believe that your rights have been infringed under the U.S. federal securities laws or otherwise. Even if you are successful in bringing an action of this kind, the laws of the Cayman Islands and of China may render you unable to enforce a judgment against our assets or the assets of our directors and officers. For more information regarding the relevant laws of the Cayman Islands and China, see “Enforceability of Civil liabilities.”

Your rights to pursue claims against the depositary as a holder of ADSs are limited by the terms of the deposit agreement.

The deposit agreement governing the ADSs representing our Class A ordinary shares provides that, subject to the right to require a claim to be settled by arbitration, ADS holders waive the right to a jury trial of any claim they may have against us or the depositary arising out of or relating to our shares, the ADSs or the deposit agreement, including any claim under the U.S. federal securities laws, to the fullest extent permitted by law. However, you will not be deemed to and you will not be

able to, by agreeing to the terms of the deposit agreement, waive our or the depositary’s compliance with U.S. federal securities laws and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.

If we or the depositary opposed a jury trial demand based on the waiver, the court would determine whether the waiver was enforceable based on the facts and circumstances of that case in accordance with the applicable state and federal law. To our knowledge, the enforceability of a contractual pre-dispute jury trial waiver in connection with claims arising under the federal securities laws has not been finally adjudicated by the United States Supreme Court. However, we believe that a contractual pre-dispute jury trial waiver provision is generally enforceable, including under the laws of the State of New York, which govern the deposit agreement, by a federal or state court in the City of New York, which has nonexclusive jurisdiction over matters arising under the deposit agreement. In determining whether to enforce a contractual pre-dispute jury trial waiver provision, courts will generally consider whether a party knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waive the right to a jury trial. We believe that this is the case with respect to the deposit agreement and the ADSs. It is advisable that you consult legal counsel regarding the jury waiver provision before entering into the deposit agreement.

If you or any other holders or beneficial owners of ADSs bring a claim against us or the depositary in connection with matters arising under the deposit agreement or the ADSs, including claims under federal securities laws, you or such other holder or beneficial owner may not be entitled to a jury trial with respect to such claims, which may have the effect of limiting and discouraging lawsuits against us or the depositary. If a lawsuit is brought against us or the depositary under the deposit agreement, it may be heard only by a judge or justice of the applicable trial court, which would be conducted according to different civil procedures and may result in different outcomes than a trial by jury would have had, including results that could be less favorable to the plaintiff(s) in any such action.

Nevertheless, if this jury trial waiver provision is not permitted by applicable law, an action could proceed under the terms of the deposit agreement with a jury trial. No condition, stipulation or provision of the deposit agreement or ADSs serves as a waiver by any holder or beneficial owner of ADSs or by us or the depositary of compliance with any substantive provision of the U.S. federal securities laws and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder.

The deposit agreement also provides that ADSs holders and the depositary have the right to elect to have any claim against us arising out of or relating to our Class A ordinary shares, ADSs, ADRs or the deposit agreement settled by arbitration in New York, New York rather than in a court of law, and to have any judgment rendered by the arbitrators entered in any court having jurisdiction. The arbitral tribunal in any such arbitration would not have the authority to award any consequential, special, or punitive damages or other damages not measured by the prevailing party’s actual damages and may not make any ruling, finding or award that does not conform to the provisions of the deposit agreement. The deposit agreement does not give us the right to require that any claim, whether brought by us or against us, be arbitrated. The optional arbitration provision does not apply to claims under federal securities laws or claims other than in connection with this offering.

We are an emerging growth company within the meaning of the Securities Act and may take advantage of certain reduced reporting requirements.

As a company with less than US$1.07 billion in revenues for our last fiscal year, we qualify as an “emerging growth company” pursuant to the JOBS Act. Therefore, we may take advantage of specified reduced reporting and other requirements that are otherwise applicable generally to public companies. These provisions include exemption from the auditor attestation requirement under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or Section 404, in the assessment of the emerging growth company’s internal control over financial reporting and permission to delay

adopting new or revised accounting standards until such time as those standards apply to private companies. As a result, if we elect not to comply with such reporting and other requirements, in particular the auditor attestation requirements, our investors may not have access to certain information they may deem important.

The JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company does not need to comply with any new or revised financial accounting standards until such date that a private company is otherwise required to comply with such new or revised accounting standards. We do not plan to “opt out” of such exemptions afforded to an emerging growth company. As a result of this election, our financial statements may not be comparable to companies that comply with public company effective dates.

As a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands, we are permitted to adopt certain home country practices in relation to corporate governance matters that differ significantly from the NYSE listing standards.

As a Cayman Islands company listed on the NYSE, we are subject to the NYSE listing standards, which requires listed companies to have, among other things, a majority of their board members to be independent and independent director oversight of executive compensation and nomination of directors. However, NYSE rules permit a foreign private issuer like us to follow the corporate governance practices of its home country. Certain corporate governance practices in the Cayman Islands, which is our home country, may differ significantly from the NYSE listing standards.

We are permitted to elect to rely on home country practice to be exempted from the corporate governance requirements. If we choose to follow home country practice in the future, our shareholders may be afforded less protection than they would otherwise enjoy if we complied fully with the NYSE listing standards.

We are a foreign private issuer within the meaning of the rules under the Exchange Act, and as such we are exempt from certain provisions applicable to U.S. domestic public companies.

Because we qualify as a foreign private issuer under the Exchange Act, we are exempt from certain provisions of the securities rules and regulations in the United States that are applicable to U.S. domestic issuers, including:

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the rules under the Exchange Act requiring the filing with the SEC of quarterly reports on Form 10-Q or current reports on Form 8-K;

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the sections of the Exchange Act regulating the solicitation of proxies, consents, or authorizations in respect of a security registered under the Exchange Act;

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the sections of the Exchange Act requiring insiders to file public reports of their stock ownership and trading activities and liability for insiders who profit from trades made in a short period of time;

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the selective disclosure rules by issuers of material nonpublic information under Regulation FD; and

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certain audit committee independence requirements in Rule 10A-3 of the Exchange Act.

We will be required to file an annual report on Form 20-F within four months of the end of each fiscal year. In addition, we intend to publish our results on a quarterly basis as press releases, distributed pursuant to the rules and regulations of the NYSE. Press releases relating to financial results and material events will also be furnished to the SEC on Form 6-K. However, the information

we are required to file with or furnish to the SEC will be less extensive and less timely compared to that required to be filed with the SEC by U.S. domestic issuers. As a result, you may not be afforded the same protections or information that would be made available to you were you investing in a U.S. domestic issuer.

There can be no assurance that we will not be a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for U.S. federal income tax purposes for any taxable year, which could result in adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences to U.S. holders of the ADSs or our Class A ordinary shares.

A non-U.S. corporation, such as our company, will be considered a passive foreign investment company, or “PFIC,” for any taxable year if either (i) at least 75% of its gross income is passive income or (ii) at least 50% of the value of its assets (generally determined on the basis of a quarterly average) is attributable to assets that produce or are held for the production of passive income. Although the law in this regard is not entirely clear, we treat our consolidated VIEs (including their subsidiaries) as being owned by us for U.S. federal income tax purposes because we control their management decisions and are entitled to substantially all of the economic benefits associated with them. As a result, we consolidate their results of operations in our consolidated U.S. GAAP financial statements. If it were determined, however, that we are not the owner of our consolidated VIEs for U.S. federal income tax purposes, we would likely be treated as a PFIC for the current taxable year and any subsequent taxable year.

Assuming that we are the owner of our consolidated VIEs for U.S. federal income tax purposes, and based upon our current and projected income and assets, including the proceeds from this offering, and projections as to the value of our assets (which are based on expected market price of the ADSs immediately following this offering), we do not expect to be a PFIC for the current taxable year or the foreseeable future. However, no assurance can be given in this regard because the determination of whether we will be or become a PFIC is a factual determination made annually that will depend, in part, upon the composition of our income and assets. Fluctuations in the market price of the ADSs may cause us to be a PFIC for the current or future taxable years because the value of our assets for purposes of the asset test, including the value of our goodwill and unbooked intangibles, may be determined by reference to the market price of the ADSs from time to time (which may be volatile). If our market capitalization subsequently declines, we may be or become a PFIC for the current taxable year or future taxable years. Furthermore, the composition of our income and assets may also be affected by how, and how quickly, we use our liquid assets and the cash raised in this offering. Under circumstances where our revenue from activities that produce passive income significantly increases relative to our revenue from activities that produce non-passive income, or where we determine not to deploy significant amounts of cash for active purposes, our risk of being or becoming a PFIC may substantially increase. Because there are uncertainties in the application of the relevant rules, there can be no assurance that we will not be a PFIC for the current taxable year or any future taxable year.

If we were treated as a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. investor held an ADS or an ordinary share, certain adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences could apply to the U.S. investor. See “Taxation — United States Federal Income Tax Considerations — Passive Foreign Investment Company Rules.”

We will incur increased costs as a result of being a public company, particularly after we cease to qualify as an “emerging growth company.”

Upon completion of this offering, we will become a public company and expect to incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as well as rules subsequently implemented by the Securities and

Exchange Commission, or the SEC, and NYSE, impose various requirements on the corporate governance practices of public companies. We expect these rules and regulations to increase our legal and financial compliance costs and to make some corporate activities more time-consuming and costly.

As a result of becoming a public company, we will need to increase the number of independent directors and adopt policies regarding internal controls and disclosure controls and procedures. We also expect that operating as a public company will make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. In addition, we will incur additional costs associated with our public company reporting requirements. It may also be more difficult for us to find qualified persons to serve on our board of directors or as executive officers. We are currently evaluating and monitoring developments with respect to these rules and regulations, and we cannot predict or estimate with any degree of certainty the number of additional costs we may incur or the timing of such costs.

In addition, as an emerging growth company, we will still incur expenses in relation to management assessment according to requirements of Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. After we are no longer an “emerging growth company,” we expect to incur additional significant expenses and devote substantial management effort toward ensuring compliance with the requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the other rules and regulations of the SEC.

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This prospectus contains forward-looking statements that reflect our current expectations and views of future events. The forward looking statements are contained principally in the sections entitled “Prospectus Summary,” “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Business.” Known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including those listed under “Risk Factors,” may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

You can identify some of these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as “may,” “will,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “aim,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” “is/are likely to,” “potential,” “continue” or other similar expressions. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. These forward-looking statements include statements relating to:

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our mission, goals and strategies;

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our future business development, financial conditions and results of operations;

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the expected growth of the insurance and online healthcare industry in China;

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our expectations regarding demand for and market acceptance of our products and services;

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our expectations regarding our relationships with consumers, insurance carriers and other partners;

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competition in our industry;

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our proposed use of proceeds; and

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relevant government policies and regulations relating to our industry.

These forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. Although we believe that our expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, our expectations may later be found to be incorrect. Our actual results could be materially different from our expectations. Important risks and factors that could cause our actual results to be materially different from our expectations are generally set forth in “Prospectus Summary — Our Challenges,” “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” “Business,” “Regulation” and other sections in this prospectus. You should read thoroughly this prospectus and the documents that we refer to with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from and worse than what we expect. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.

This prospectus contains certain data and information that we obtained from various government and private publications. Statistical data in these publications also include projections based on a number of assumptions. The industries in which we operate may not grow at the rate projected by market data, or at all. Failure of those industries to grow at the projected rate may have a material and adverse effect on our business and the market price of the ADSs. In addition, the rapidly evolving nature of this industry results in significant uncertainties for any projections or estimates relating to the growth prospects or future condition of our market. Furthermore, if any one or more of the assumptions underlying the market data are later found to be incorrect, actual results may differ from the projections based on these assumptions. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements made in this prospectus relate only to events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this prospectus. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should read this prospectus and the documents that we refer to in this prospectus and have filed as exhibits to the registration statement, of which this prospectus is a part, completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be materially different from what we expect.

USE OF PROCEEDS

We estimate that we will receive net proceeds from this offering of approximately US$ , or approximately US$ if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and the estimated offering expenses payable by us. These estimates are based upon an assumed initial public offering price of US$ per ADS, which is the midpoint of the price range shown on the front page of this prospectus. A US$1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of US$ per ADS would increase (decrease) the net proceeds to us from this offering by US$ , assuming the number of ADSs offered by us, as set forth on the front cover of this prospectus, remains the same and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated expenses payable by us.

The primary purposes of this offering are to create a public market for our shares for the benefit of all shareholders, to retain talented employees by providing them with equity incentives and to obtain additional capital. We plan to use the net proceeds of this offering to expand our business operations as follows:

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approximately % to enhance and expand our operations in healthcare service and insurance business;

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approximately % for research and development; and

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the balance for general corporate purposes, which may include working capital needs and potential strategic investments and acquisitions in healthcare service and insurance sector, although we have not identified any specific investments or acquisition opportunities.

The foregoing represents our current intentions based upon our present plans and business conditions to use and allocate the net proceeds of this offering. Our management, however, will have significant flexibility and discretion to apply the net proceeds of this offering. If an unforeseen event occurs or business conditions change, we may use the proceeds of this offering differently than as described in this prospectus. See “Risk Factors — Risks Related to the ADSs and This Offering — We have not determined a specific use for a portion of the net proceeds from this offering and we may use these proceeds in ways with which you may not agree.”

Pending any use described above, we plan to invest the net proceeds in short-term, interest-bearing, debt instruments or demand deposits.

In using the proceeds of this offering, we are permitted under PRC laws and regulations as an offshore holding company to provide funding to our PRC subsidiaries only through loans or capital contributions and to our VIEs only through loans, subject to satisfaction of applicable government registration and approval requirements. We cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain these government registrations or approvals on a timely basis, or at all. See “Risk Factors — Risks Relating to Doing Business in China — PRC regulation of loans to and direct investment in PRC entities by offshore holding companies may delay us from using the proceeds of this offering to make loans or additional capital contributions to our PRC subsidiaries and to make loans to our VIEs, which could materially and adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.”

[We will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of ADSs by the selling shareholders.]

DIVIDEND POLICY

Our board of directors has discretion on whether to distribute dividends, subject to certain requirements of Cayman Islands law. In addition, our shareholders may by ordinary resolution declare a dividend, but no dividend may exceed the amount recommended by our board of directors. In either case, all dividends are subject to certain restrictions under Cayman Islands law, namely that our company may only pay dividends out of profits or share premium, and provided always that, in no circumstances may a dividend be paid if this would result in our company being unable to pay its debts as they fall due in the ordinary course of business. Even if we decide to pay dividends, the form, frequency and amount will depend upon our future operations and earnings, capital requirements and surplus, general financial condition, contractual restrictions and other factors that the board of directors may deem relevant.

We do not have any present plan to pay any cash dividends on our ordinary shares in the foreseeable future after this offering. We currently intend to retain most, if not all, of our available funds and any future earnings to operate and expand our business.

We are a holding company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. We may rely on dividends from our subsidiaries in China for our cash requirements, including any payment of dividends to our shareholders. PRC regulations may restrict the ability of our PRC subsidiaries to pay dividends to us. See “Regulation — Regulations on Dividend Distribution.”

If we pay any dividends on our Class A ordinary shares, we will pay those dividends which are payable in respect of the Class A ordinary shares underlying the ADSs to the depositary, as the registered holder of such Class A ordinary shares, and the depositary then will pay such amounts to the ADS holders in proportion to the Class A ordinary shares underlying the ADSs held by such ADS holders, subject to the terms of the deposit agreement, including the fees and expenses payable thereunder. See “Description of American Depositary Shares.” Cash dividends on our Class A ordinary shares, if any, will be paid in U.S. dollars.

CAPITALIZATION

The following table sets forth our capitalization as of December 31, 2020:

•

on an actual basis;

•

on a pro forma basis to (i) the automatic re-designation of 801,904,979 ordinary shares held by Neptune Max Holdings Limited into 801,904,979 Class B ordinary shares on a one-for-one basis immediately prior to the completion of this offering, and (ii) the automatic re-designation or conversion, as the case may be, of all of our remaining 2,839,360,311 shares into 2,839,360,311 Class A ordinary shares on a one-for-one basis upon the completion of this offering; and

•

on a pro forma as adjusted basis to reflect (i) the automatic re-designation of 801,904,979 ordinary shares held by Neptune Max Holdings Limited into 801,904,979 Class B ordinary shares on a one-for-one basis immediately prior to the completion of this offering, (ii) the automatic re-designation or conversion, as the case may be, of all of our remaining 2,839,360,311 shares into 2,839,360,311 Class A ordinary shares on a one-for-one basis upon the completion of this offering, and (iii) the sale of Class A ordinary shares in the form of ADSs by us in this offering at an assumed initial public offering price of US$ per ADS, which is the midpoint of the estimated range of the initial public offering price shown on the front cover of this prospectus, after deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us, assuming the underwriters do not exercise the over-allotment option.

You should read this table together with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus and the information under “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”


	As of December 31, 2020
	Actual		Pro Forma		Pro Forma As Adjusted⁽¹⁾
	(in thousands)
	RMB		RMB
Mezzanine equity:
Series Pre-A convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 241,148,000 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		56,185		—
Series A convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 334,926,000 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		129,323		—
Series A+ convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 157,896,000 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		77,520		—
Series B convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 352,107,646 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		497,106		—
Series C convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 542,794,072 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		1,222,224		—


	As of December 31, 2020
	Actual			Pro Forma			Pro Forma As Adjusted⁽¹⁾
	(in thousands)
	RMB			RMB
Series C+ convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 170,632,018 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		490,571			—
Series C++ convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 120,971,053 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		388,925			—
Series D convertible redeemable preferred shares (US$ 0.000005 par value per share; 517,264,501 shares authorized, issued and outstanding on an actual basis, and none outstanding on a pro forma or pro forma as adjusted basis)		1,975,482			—

Total mezzanine equity		4,837,336			—

Shareholders’ (deficit)/equity:
Common shares (US$ 0.000005 par value; 10,000,000,000 shares authorized, 1,203,526,000 shares issued and outstanding as of December 31, 2020 on an actual basis; and none issued or outstanding on a pro forma or a pro forma as adjusted basis)		41			—
Class A ordinary shares (US$0.000005 par value; none issued or outstanding on an actual basis; 2,839,360,311 issued and outstanding on a pro forma basis; and outstanding on a pro forma as adjusted basis)		—			94
Class B ordinary shares (US$0.000005 par value; none issued or outstanding on an actual basis; 801,904,979 issued and outstanding on a pro forma and pro forma as adjusted basis)		—			27
Additional paid-in capital		—			4,837,256
Accumulated deficit		(1,672,021	)		(1,672,021	)
Accumulated other comprehensive income		14,956			14,956
Total shareholders’ deficit⁽²⁾		(1,657,024	)		3,180,312

Total capitalization⁽²⁾		3,180,312			3,180,312

Notes:

(1)

The pro forma as adjusted information discussed above is illustrative only. Our additional paid-in capital, total shareholders’ equity and total capitalization following the completion of this offering are subject to adjustment based on the actual initial public offering price and other terms of this offering determined at pricing.

(2)

A US$1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of US$ per share, the midpoint of the range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, would increase (decrease) each of additional paid-in capital, total shareholders’ equity, total equity and total capitalization by US$ .

DILUTION

If you invest in the ADSs, your interest will be diluted to the extent of the difference between the initial public offering price per ADS and our net tangible book value per ADS after this offering. Dilution results from the fact that the initial public offering price per ordinary share is substantially in excess of the book value per ordinary share attributable to the existing shareholders for our presently outstanding ordinary shares.

Our net tangible book value as of December 31, 2020 was approximately US$ million, representing US$ per ordinary share as of that date and US$ per ADS, or US$ per ordinary share and US$ per ADS on a pro forma basis. Net tangible book value represents the amount of our total consolidated tangible assets, less the amount of our total consolidated liabilities. Pro forma net tangible book value per ordinary share is calculated after giving effect to the automatic conversion of all of our issued and outstanding convertible preferred shares. Dilution is determined by subtracting pro forma net tangible book value per ordinary share, after giving effect to the additional proceeds we will receive from this offering, from the assumed initial public offering price of US$ per ordinary share, which is the midpoint of the estimated initial public offering price range set forth on the front cover of this prospectus adjusted to reflect the ADS-to-ordinary share ratio, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

Without taking into account any other changes in pro forma net tangible book value after December 31, 2020, other than to give effect to our sale of the ADSs offered in this offering at the assumed initial public offering price of US$ per ADS, which is the midpoint of the estimated initial public offering price range, after deduction of the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us, our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value as of December 31, 2020 would have been US$ , or US$ per ordinary share and US$ per ADS. This represents an immediate increase in net tangible book value of US$ per ordinary share and US$ per ADS to the existing shareholders and an immediate dilution in net tangible book value of US$ per ordinary share and US$ per ADS to investors purchasing ADSs in this offering. The following table illustrates such dilution:


	Per Ordinary Share	Per ADS
Assumed initial public offering price	US$	US$
Net tangible book value as of December 31, 2020	US$	US$
Pro forma net tangible book value after giving effect to the conversion of our preferred shares	US$	US$
Pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value after giving effect to the conversion of our preferred shares and this offering	US$	US$
Amount of dilution in net tangible book value to new investors in this offering	US$	US$

A US$1.00 increase (decrease) in the assumed initial public offering price of US$ per ADS would increase (decrease) our pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value after giving effect to this offering by US$ , the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per ordinary share and per ADS after giving effect to this offering by US$ per ordinary share and US$ per ADS and the dilution in pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per ordinary share and per ADS to new investors in this offering by US$ per ordinary share and US$ per ADS, assuming no change to the number of ADSs offered by us as set forth on the front cover of this prospectus, and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us.

The following table summarizes, on a pro forma as adjusted basis as of December 31, 2020, the differences between existing shareholders and the new investors with respect to the number of ordinary shares (in the form of ADSs or shares) purchased from us, the total consideration paid and the average price per ordinary share and per ADS paid before deducting the underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. The total number of ordinary shares does not include Class A ordinary shares underlying the ADSs issuable upon the exercise of the over-allotment option granted to the underwriters.

Ordinary Shares
Purchased

Total Consideration

Average
Price Per
Ordinary
Share

Average
Price Per
ADS

Number

Percent

Amount

Percent

Existing shareholders

US$

New investors

US$

Total

US$

100.0

The pro forma as adjusted information discussed above is illustrative only. Our net tangible book value following the completion of this offering is subject to adjustment based on the actual initial public offering price of the ADSs and other terms of this offering determined at pricing.

The discussion and tables above assume no exercise of any share options outstanding as of the date of this prospectus. As of the date of this prospectus, there are 285,474,868 Class A ordinary shares issuable upon the exercise of outstanding share options with exercise prices ranging from US$0.003 per share to US$0.08 per share. To the extent that any of these options are exercised, there will be further dilution to new investors.

ENFORCEABILITY OF CIVIL LIABILITIES

We are incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands as an exempted company with limited liability. We are incorporated in the Cayman Islands to take advantage of certain benefits associated with being a Cayman Islands exempted company, such as:

•

political and economic stability;

•

an effective judicial system;

•

a favorable tax system;

•

the absence of exchange control or currency restrictions; and

•

the availability of professional and support services.

However, certain disadvantages accompany incorporation in the Cayman Islands. These disadvantages include, but are not limited to:

•

the Cayman Islands has a less developed body of securities laws as compared to the United States and these securities laws provide significantly less protection to investors as compared to the United States; and

•

Cayman Islands companies may not have standing to sue before the federal courts of the United States.

Our constituent documents do not contain provisions requiring that disputes, including those arising under the securities laws of the United States, between us, our officers, directors and shareholders, be arbitrated.

All of our operations are conducted in China, and substantially all of our assets are located in China. A majority of our directors and officers are nationals or residents of jurisdictions other than the United States and most of their assets are located outside the United States. As a result, it may be difficult for a shareholder to effect service of process within the United States upon these individuals, or to bring an action against us or these individuals in the United States, or to enforce against us or them judgments obtained in United States courts, including judgments predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the securities laws of the United States or any state in the United States.

We have appointed Cogency Global Inc., located at 122 East 42nd Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10168, as our agent upon whom process may be served in any action brought against us under the securities laws of the United States.

Maples and Calder (Hong Kong) LLP, our counsel as to Cayman Islands law, has advised us that there is uncertainty as to whether the courts of the Cayman Islands would (i) recognize or enforce judgments of U.S. courts obtained against us or our directors or officers that are predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the federal securities laws of the United States or the securities laws of any state in the United States, or (ii) entertain original actions brought in the Cayman Islands against us or our directors or officers that are predicated upon the federal securities laws of the United States or the securities laws of any state in the United States.

Maples and Calder (Hong Kong) LLP has informed us that although there is no statutory enforcement in the Cayman Islands of judgments obtained in the federal or state courts of the United States (and the Cayman Islands are not a party to any treaties for the reciprocal enforcement or recognition of such judgments), a judgment obtained in such jurisdiction will be recognized and enforced in the courts of the Cayman Islands at common law, without any reexamination of the merits of the underlying dispute, by an action commenced on the foreign judgment debt in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, provided such judgment (a) is given by a foreign court of competent jurisdiction, (b) imposes on the judgment debtor a liability to pay a liquidated sum for

which the judgment has been given, (c) is final, (d) is not in respect of taxes, a fine or a penalty, and (e) was not obtained in a manner and is not of a kind the enforcement of which is contrary to natural justice or the public policy of the Cayman Islands. However, the Cayman Islands courts are unlikely to enforce a judgment obtained from the U.S. courts under civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities law if such judgment is determined by the courts of the Cayman Islands to give rise to obligations to make payments that are penal or punitive in nature. A Cayman Islands court may stay enforcement proceedings if concurrent proceedings are being brought elsewhere.

Han Kun Law Offices, our counsel as to PRC law, has advised us that there is uncertainty as to whether the courts of China would:

•

recognize or enforce judgments of United States courts obtained against us or our directors or officers predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the securities laws of the United States or any state in the United States; or

•

entertain original actions brought in each respective jurisdiction against us or our directors or officers predicated upon the securities laws of the United States or any state in the United States.

Han Kun Law Offices has further advised us that the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments are provided for under the PRC Civil Procedures Law. PRC courts may recognize and enforce foreign judgments in accordance with the requirements of the PRC Civil Procedures Law based either on treaties between China and the country where the judgment is made or on principles of reciprocity between jurisdictions. China does not have any treaties or other form of reciprocity with the United States or the Cayman Islands that provides for the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments. In addition, according to the PRC Civil Procedures Law, courts in the PRC will not enforce a foreign judgment against us or our directors and officers if it decides that the judgment violates the basic principles of PRC law or national sovereignty, security, or public interest. As a result, it is uncertain whether, and on what basis, a PRC court would enforce a judgment rendered by a court in the United States or in the Cayman Islands. Under the PRC Civil Procedures Law, foreign shareholders may originate actions based on PRC law against a company in China for disputes if they can establish sufficient nexus to the PRC for a PRC court to have jurisdiction, and meet other procedural requirements, including, among others, the plaintiff must have a direct interest in the case, and there must be a concrete claim, a factual basis and a cause for the suit. It will be, however, difficult for U.S. shareholders to originate actions against us in the PRC in accordance with PRC laws because we are incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands and it will be difficult for U.S. shareholders, by virtue only of holding the ADSs or Class A ordinary shares, to establish a connection to the PRC for a PRC court to have jurisdiction as required under the PRC Civil Procedures Law.

CORPORATE HISTORY AND STRUCTURE

We commenced our operation through Beijing Zongqing Xiangqian Technology Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Beijing Weizhong Culture Technology Co., Ltd.), or Zongqing Xiangqian, in 2016. We launched Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform in May 2016 and then launched Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform for critical illness crowdfunding in July 2016. Beijing Shuidi Hubao Technology Co., Ltd., or Shuidi Hubao, was established in December 2016 to operate Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform. Beijing Shuidi Hulian Technology Co., Ltd., or Shuidi Hulian, was established in December 2016 to operate Waterdrop Mutual Aid platform. We acquired Shuidi Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Baoduoduo Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd.), or Shuidi Insurance Brokerage, in September 2016 to conduct insurance brokerage business and Tairui Insurance Agency Co., Ltd. in June 2020 to conduct insurance agency business and launched our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace in May 2017. Beijing Zhuiqiu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd., or Zhuiqiu Jizhi was established in February 2018, which acquired Tianjin Jingbin Internet Technology Co., Ltd. in October 2019 to invest in and incubate new businesses. Miaoyi Hulian (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. was established in July 2018 to operate general healthcare and pharmaceutical services.

The following diagram illustrates our corporate structure, including our principal subsidiaries, our VIEs and our VIEs’ principal subsidiaries, immediately upon the completion of this offering:

LOGO

Notes:

(1)	Mr. Peng Shen holds 100% of the equity interests in Beijing Shuidi Hubao Technology Co., Ltd.

(2)	Mr. Peng Shen and Mr. Wei Ran, an employee of the Company, each holds 99% and 1% of the equity interests in Beijing Shuidi Hulian Technology Co., Ltd.

(3)	Mr. Peng Shen and Mr. Guang Yang each holds 99% and 1% of the equity interests in Beijing Zhuiqiu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd.

(4)	Mr. Peng Shen and Mr. Wei Ran, an employee of the Company, each holds 99% and 1% of the equity interests in Beijing Zongqing Xiangqian Technology Co., Ltd.

Contractual Arrangements with Our Variable Interest Entities and Their Shareholders

Current PRC laws and regulations impose certain restrictions or prohibitions on foreign ownership and investment in internet-based businesses such as the value-added telecommunication services. We are an exempted company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Absolute Health is our PRC subsidiary and a foreign-invested enterprise under PRC laws.

To comply with PRC laws and regulations, we conduct certain of our business in China through Zhuiqiu Jizhi, Shuidi Hubao, Shuidi Hulian and Zongqing Xianqian, our variable interest entities in the PRC, based on a series of contractual arrangements by and among Absolute Health, our VIEs and their shareholders. We refer to Absolute Health as our WFOE, and Zhuiqiu Jizhi, Shuidi Hubao, Shuidi Hulian and Zongqing Xianqian as our VIEs in this prospectus.

Our contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their respective shareholders allow us to (i) exercise effective control over our VIEs, (ii) receive substantially all of the economic benefits of our VIEs, and (iii) have an exclusive option to purchase all or part of the equity interests in our VIEs when and to the extent permitted by PRC law.

As a result of our direct ownership in our WFOE and the contractual arrangements with our VIEs, we are regarded as the primary beneficiary of our VIEs, and we treat them and their subsidiaries as our variable interest entities under U.S. GAAP. We have consolidated the financial results of our VIEs and their subsidiaries in our consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Agreements that provide us with effective control over our VIEs

Powers of Attorney. Pursuant to the powers of attorney, between our WFOE and the shareholders of our VIEs, each of the shareholders of our VIEs has executed a power of attorney to irrevocably authorize our WFOE, or any person designated by our WFOE, to act as his attorney-in-fact to exercise all of his rights as a shareholder of our VIE, including, but not limited to, the right to (i) propose, convene and attend shareholders’ meetings, (ii) vote on any resolution on behalf of the shareholders that require the shareholders to vote under PRC law and our VIE’s articles of association, such as the sale, transfer, pledge and disposal of all or part of a shareholder’s equity interest in our VIE, and (iii) designate and appoint our VIE’s legal representative, director, supervisor, manager and other senior management members on behalf of the shareholders. The powers of attorney will remain effective until such shareholder ceases to be a shareholder of our VIE.

Loan Agreements. Pursuant to the loan agreement between our WFOE and each of the shareholders of Zongqing Xiangqian, our WFOE extended loans to the shareholders of Zongqing Xiangqian, who had contributed the loan principals to Zongqing Xiangqian mainly as registered capital. The shareholders of Zongqing Xiangqian may repay the loans only by transferring their respective equity interests in Zongqing Xiangqian to WFOE or its designated person(s) pursuant to the exclusive option agreements. Each loan shall be interest-free unless, in the event of a transfer of equity interests by a shareholder of Zongqing Xiangqian to our WFOE or its designated person(s) pursuant to the exclusive option agreement, the transfer price exceeds the loan principal. The excess over the loan principal shall be deemed the interest of the loan to the extent permitted under PRC law. These loan agreements will remain effective until the date of full performance by the parties of their respective obligations thereunder. The loan agreement among our WFOE, Zhuiqiu Jizhi and the shareholders of Zhuiqiu Jizhi are substantially the same.

Equity Interest Pledge Agreements. Pursuant to the equity interest pledge agreements, among our WFOE, our VIEs and the shareholders of our VIEs, the shareholders of our VIEs have pledged all of their respective equity interests in our VIEs to our WFOE to guarantee performance of

the obligations of our VIEs and their shareholders under the exclusive business cooperation agreements, the powers of attorney, the exclusive option agreements and loan agreements (as applicable). In the event of a breach by our VIEs or any of their shareholders of contractual obligations under these contractual arrangements, our WFOE, as pledgee, will have the right to request for enforcement of the pledge and dispose of the pledged equity interests in our VIEs and will have priority in receiving the proceeds from such disposal. Our VIEs and the shareholders of our VIEs also covenant that, without the prior written consent of our WFOE, they shall not transfer the pledged equity interests, create or allow any new pledge or any other encumbrance on the pledged equity interests. The equity interest pledge agreements will remain effective until the contractual obligations are fully fulfilled.

We have completed the registration of the equity interest pledge under the equity interest pledge agreements in relation to our VIEs with the relevant offices of the State Administration of Market Regulation in accordance with the PRC Property Rights Law.

Agreements that allow us to receive economic benefits from our VIEs

Exclusive Business Cooperation Agreements. Pursuant to the exclusive business cooperation agreements, between our WFOE and our VIEs, our WFOE has the exclusive right to provide our VIEs with consulting, technical services and other services required by our VIEs’ business. Without our WFOE’s prior written consent, our VIEs may not accept the same or similar consulting, technical services and other services provided by any third party during the term of the agreement. Our VIEs agree to pay our WFOE service fees based on the operating profit generated by the VIEs on an annual basis. Our WFOE has the exclusive ownership of all the intellectual property rights created as a result of the performance of the exclusive business cooperation agreement. To guarantee our VIEs’ performance of their obligations thereunder, the shareholders of our VIEs have pledged all of their equity interests in our VIEs to our WFOE pursuant to the equity interest pledge agreement. The exclusive business cooperation agreement will remain effective, unless otherwise terminated by our WFOE in writing or based on conditions expressly stipulated in the exclusive business cooperation agreements.

Agreements that provide us with the option to purchase the equity interests in our VIEs

Exclusive Option Agreements. Pursuant to the exclusive option agreements, among our WFOE, our VIEs and the shareholders of our VIEs, each of the shareholders has irrevocably granted our WFOE, or any person or persons designated by our WFOE, an exclusive option to purchase all or part of his equity interests in our VIE, and our VIE has agreed to such grant of options. Our WFOE may exercise such options at a price equal to the higher of RMB1 or the lowest price as permitted by applicable PRC laws at the time of transfer of equity or an amount equal to the registered capital contributed by the relevant shareholder. Our VIEs and the shareholders of our VIEs covenant that, without our WFOE’s prior written consent, they will not, among other things, (i) supplement, change or amend our VIEs’ articles of association and bylaws, (ii) increase or decrease our VIEs’ registered capital or change the structure of registered capital, (iii) create any pledge or encumbrance on their equity interests in our VIEs, other than those created under the equity interest pledge agreements, (iv) sell, transfer, mortgage, or dispose of their equity interests in and any material assets of our VIEs and any legal or beneficial interests in the business or revenue of our VIEs, (v) enter into any material contracts by our VIEs, except in the ordinary course of business, or (vi) merge or consolidate our VIEs with any other entity. These agreements will remain effective till all of the equity interests of the relevant VIEs have been transferred to our WFOE and/or its designated person.

Spousal Consent Letters. The spouses of the individual shareholders of our VIEs have each signed a spousal consent letter agreeing that the equity interests in our VIEs held by and registered

under the name of the respective individual shareholders will be disposed pursuant to the contractual agreements with our WFOE, without seeking further authorization or consent of such spouses. Each spouse agreed not to assert any rights over the equity interests in our VIEs held by the respective individual shareholders.

In the opinion of Han Kun Law Offices, our PRC legal counsel:

•

the ownership structures of our VIEs in China and our WFOE both currently and immediately after giving effect to this offering, do not and will not result in violation of any explicit provisions of PRC laws, rules or regulations currently in effect; and

•

the contractual arrangements between our WFOE, our VIEs and their shareholders governed by PRC law, rules and regulations both currently and immediately after giving effect to this offering are valid, binding and enforceable, and will not result in violation of any explicit provisions of PRC laws, rules or regulations currently in effect.

However, our PRC legal counsel has also advised us that there are substantial uncertainties regarding the interpretation and application of current and future PRC laws, regulations and rules. Accordingly, the PRC regulatory authorities may take a view that is contrary to the opinion of our PRC legal counsel. It is uncertain whether any new PRC laws or regulations relating to variable interest entity structures will be adopted or if adopted, what they would provide. If we or our VIEs are found to be in violation of any existing or future PRC laws or regulations, or fail to obtain or maintain any of the required permits or approvals, the relevant PRC regulatory authorities would have broad discretion to take action in dealing with such violations or failures. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Corporate Structure—If the PRC government finds that the agreements that establish the structure for operating some of our operations in China do not comply with PRC regulations relating to the relevant industries, or if these regulations or the interpretation of existing regulations change in the future, we could be subject to severe penalties or be forced to relinquish our interests in those operations.” and “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Doing Business in China—Uncertainties with respect to the PRC legal system could adversely affect us.”

SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA

The following table sets forth a summary of our consolidated statements of comprehensive loss for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020.


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands, except for share and per share data)
Operating revenue, net		238,149			1,510,965			3,027,948			464,053
Operating costs and expenses
Operating costs		(45,932	)		(291,310	)		(742,258	)		(113,755	)
Sales and marketing expenses		(184,943	)		(1,056,494	)		(2,130,535	)		(326,519	)
General and administrative expenses		(126,242	)		(142,995	)		(407,171	)		(62,402	)
Research and development expenses		(69,196	)		(214,646	)		(244,230	)		(37,430	)

Total operating costs and expenses		(426,313	)		(1,705,445	)		(3,524,194	)		(540,106	)

Operating loss		(188,164	)		(194,480	)		(496,246	)		(76,053	)

Other income/(expenses)
Interest income		2,428			10,533			26,515			4,064
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			(150,685	)		(23,093	)
Foreign currency exchange gain/(loss)		66			4,152			(1,335	)		(205	)
Others, net		(1,967	)		817			8,052			1,234

Loss before income tax, and share of results of equity method investee		(187,637	)		(178,978	)		(613,699	)		(94,053	)

Income tax expense		(21,503	)		(142,528	)		(50,155	)		(7,687	)
Share of results of equity method investee		(54	)		(29	)		(15	)		(2	)

Net loss attributable to Waterdrop Inc.		(209,194	)		(321,535	)		(663,869	)		(101,742	)
Deemed dividend on modification on preferred shares		—			—			(67,975	)		(10,418	)
Deemed dividend upon issuance of warrants		—			—			(90,268	)		(13,834	)
Preferred shares redemption value accretion		(22,230	)		(136,839	)		(285,668	)		(43,781	)

Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders		(231,424	)		(458,374	)		(1,107,780	)		(169,755	)

Weighted average number of ordinary shares used in computing net loss per share
Basic and diluted		839,572,645			1,203,526,000			1,174,583,516			1,174,583,516
Net loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders
Basic and diluted		(0.28	)		(0.38	)		(0.94	)		(0.14	)


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018		2019		2020
	RMB		RMB		RMB			US$
Pro forma weighted average number of ordinary shares used in computing net loss per share
Basic and diluted		—		—		3,215,144,213			3,215,144,213
Pro forma net loss per share attributable to ordinary shareholders
Basic and diluted		—		—		(0.23	)		(0.04	)

The following table presents our selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2019 and 2020.


	As of December 31,
	2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Selected Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:
Cash and cash equivalents		964,476			1,061,962			162,753
Restricted cash		329,676			261,387			40,059
Short-term investments		60,278			1,193,160			182,860
Accounts receivable		252,499			539,791			82,727
Contract assets		617,688			848,550			130,046
Total assets		2,555,906			4,705,055			721,082
Insurance premium payables⁽¹⁾		320,237			607,326			93,077
Deferred revenue⁽²⁾		21,670			22,017			3,374
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities⁽³⁾		496,530			595,606			91,281
Deferred tax liabilities⁽⁴⁾		167,601			225,745			34,597
Total liabilities		1,054,394			1,524,743			233,678
Total mezzanine equity		2,207,831			4,837,336			741,354
Total shareholders’ deficit		(706,319	)		(1,657,024	)		(253,950	)

Notes:

(1)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB320.2 million and RMB607.3 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

(2)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB21.7 million and RMB22.0 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

(3)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB428.8 million and RMB447.2 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

(4)	Includes amounts of the consolidated VIEs and subsidiaries of VIEs without recourse to the Company of RMB167.2 million and RMB225.3 million as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

The following table sets forth our selected consolidated cash flow data for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020.


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Selected Consolidated Cash Flow Data:
Net cash used in operating activities		(211,029	)		(532,895	)		(777,108	)		(119,097	)
Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities		31,988			(45,955	)		(1,217,701	)		(186,621	)
Net cash provided by financing activities		362,669			1,472,775			2,050,890			314,313
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents		(1,973	)		27,342			(26,884	)		(4,120	)

Net increase in cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash		181,655			921,267			29,197			4,475
Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of year		191,230			372,885			1,294,152			198,337

Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of year		372,885			1,294,152			1,323,349			202,812

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We use two non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA, in evaluating our operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. Adjusted net loss represents net loss excluding share-based compensation expense, foreign currency exchange gain or losses, fair value change of warrant and share of results of equity method investee. Such adjustments have no impact on income taxes. Adjusted EBITDA represents adjusted net loss excluding depreciation interest income and income tax expense.

We present the non-GAAP financial measures because they are used by our management to evaluate our operating performance and formulate business plans. Adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA enable our management to assess our operating results without considering the impact of share-based compensation expense, foreign currency exchange gain or losses, fair value change of warrant, share of results of equity method investee, depreciation, interest income and income tax expense. We believe that adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA help identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be distorted by the effect of certain expenses that are included in net loss. We also believe that the use of the non-GAAP measures facilitate investors’ assessment of our operating performance. We believe that adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA provide useful information about our operating results, enhance the overall understanding of our past performance and future prospects and allow for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by our management in its financial and operational decision making.

The table below sets forth a reconciliation of our net loss to adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA for the years indicated:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Net loss		(209,194	)		(321,535	)		(663,869	)		(101,742	)
Add:
Share-based compensation expense		47,812			27,996			227,828			34,917
Foreign currency exchange (gain)/loss		(66	)		(4,152	)		1,335			205
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			150,685			23,093
Share of results of equity method investee		54			29			15			2

Adjusted net loss		(161,394	)		(297,662	)		(284,006	)		(43,525	)
Depreciation and amortization		1,983			6,687			13,065			2,003
Interest income		(2,428	)		(10,533	)		(26,515	)		(4,064	)
Income tax expense		21,503			142,528			50,155			7,687

Adjusted EBITDA		(140,336	)		(158,980	)		(247,301	)		(37,899	)

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF

FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. Our actual results may differ materially from those we currently anticipate as a result of many factors, including those we describe under “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus. See “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.”

Overview

We are a leading technology platform dedicated to insurance and healthcare services with a positive social impact. We are the largest independent third-party insurance platform in China in terms of life and health insurance FYP distributed in 2020, according to iResearch. Through our medical crowdfunding, mutual aid platforms and our insurance marketplace, we have built a massive social network of protection and support for people, raising awareness of insurance and ultimately providing insurance and healthcare service to consumers in China.

We operated Waterdrop Mutual Aid between May 2016 and March 2021, under which we generated management fee income as an operator, and then launched Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding for critical illness crowdfunding in July 2016. We currently do not generate any revenue from our medical crowdfunding platform. We began to distribute insurance products underwritten by insurance carriers in our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace in May 2017, through which we earn brokerage income.

We have experienced substantial growth since our inception. We primarily generate revenues from the brokerage income associated with commission fees that we charge insurance carriers for facilitating the sales of insurance policies. Our total net operating revenue increased by 534.6% from RMB238.1 million in 2018 to RMB1,511.0 million in 2019, and further increased by 100.4% to RMB3,027.9 million (US$464.1 million) in 2020. We had a net loss of RMB209.2 million, RMB321.5 million and RMB663.9 million (US$101.7 million) in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Key Factors Affecting Our Results of Operations

We benefit from the rapid development of healthcare and insurance industries, in particular health and life insurance industry, in China. According to iResearch report, the total healthcare expenditure is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.2% from 2019 to 2024, with only 29.4% covered by social medical insurance, commercial insurance and other complimentary medical coverage channels such as medical crowdfunding and other social charities in 2019. This significant protection gap of the healthcare expenditure implies huge growth potential of commercial insurance, especially life and health insurance. According to iResearch report, the total insurance premium in China is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.9% from 2019 to 2024. As an industry leader in health and life insurance distribution, and medical crowdfunding, we are uniquely positioned to capture these market opportunities, and in the future tap into other healthcare service markets. Meanwhile, we operate in a highly regulated industry in China, and the regulatory regime continues to evolve. Regulatory changes may affect our growth potential as well as the competitive landscape of the market.

While our business is influenced by general factors affecting our industry, our results of operations are more directly affected by company-specific factors, including the following major ones:

Expansion of consumer base

Brokerage income earned from insurance carriers through our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace is the main source of our revenue, which is significantly affected by the number of insurance consumers on the Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace.

Our insurance consumers mainly come from three sources. Firstly, our medical crowdfunding operation direct substantial traffic to our insurance marketplace. Approximately 46.5%, 23.0% and 13.0% of the FYP generated through Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace for 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively, was sourced from traffic from our medical crowdfunding platform. Historically, our mutual aid operation also directed traffic to our insurance marketplace. We see the internal source of consumer traffic as an important and unique consumer acquisition resource to us, and in addition we consider this cohort of consumers with stronger awareness of insurance protection and stronger interest in the content and product offerings on our platforms, and more loyal to our services.

In order to continuously diversify our consumer acquisition channels, we also cooperate with other third-party traffic channels to grow our insurance consumer base. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, approximately 1.9%, 34.8% and 44.9% of the FYP generated through Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace was sourced from third-party traffic channels, respectively. We expect third-party traffic channels to play an important role in the future to support the rapid growth of our business. We have faith in our competitive advantages in consumer acquisition cost, as a result of our brand recognition, data insights into insurance consumers, and deep cooperation with major traffic providers in China’s internet business.

Last but not the least, consumers attracted to our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace through natural traffic also contributed to our consumer growth. We will continue to strengthen our brand to attract more insurance consumers. The repeat purchase of a short-term insurance product by a returning consumer after his or her existing short-term policy expires or a new purchase of another insurance product with additional or different coverage by a returning consumer also contributed to FYP growth. In 2020, 31.9% of short-term policy FYP and 86.1% of long-term policy FYP were contributed by returning consumers, compared to 26.5% and 83.6% respectively in 2019.

The table below sets forth the sources of FYPs for the periods presented:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018				2019				2020
	(RMB million)		(%)		(RMB million)		(%)		(RMB million)		(%)
Internal traffic
Medical Crowdfunding		452		46.5		1,533		23.0		1,872		13.0
Mutual Aid		376		38.6		829		12.4		521		3.6
Third-party traffic channels		18		1.9		2,321		34.8		6,474		44.9
Natural traffic and repeat purchase		126		13.0		1,985		29.8		5,559		38.5

Total		972		100.0		6,668		100.0		14,426		100.0

As a result, our consumer base experienced rapid growth in our track record period. The number of consumers on our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace increased approximately from 1.6 million in 2018 to 7.8 million in 2019 and further to 12.6 million in 2020. Aside from these consumers, we also had 3.6 million, 14.0 million and 51.2 million gift insurance policyholders in

2018, 2019 and 2020 who subscribed to insurance policies through us for free as a result of our promotional activities. These policyholders form a promising base of potential insurance consumers from a user conversion perspective.

First year premium per consumer

As the consumers’ awareness for health protection and insurance products in China were still substantially lower than in developed countries, many insurance consumers on our platform start with purchases of short-term products. We began to offer long-term health and life insurance products at the end of 2018, and we have been endeavoring to raise consumer awareness, and demonstrate the value and importance of long-term health and life insurance through our interactions with them. We soon won the trust of insurance consumers with their important purchases — the FYP per policy of long-term health and life insurance products generated through us in 2020 reached RMB4,149.5. Long-term health and life insurance products accounted for 8.3% and 17.4% of the FYP generated through us in 2019 and 2020, and consequently the FYP per policy increased from RMB442.6 in 2018 to RMB619.9 in 2019 and further to RMB819.1 in 2020.

In addition to premium per policy, the growth in the number of policy per consumer, from 1.3 in 2018 to 1.4 in 2019 and 2020, also contributed to the increase in premium per consumer. We believe that consumers stick to our services and repeat their purchases on our platform most importantly because of the attractive product price and the consumer-friendly features of products offered at our platform. Our large consumer base and strong business growth allow us to negotiate favorable terms in our business cooperation with insurance carriers. We work with insurance carriers, our customers, to design and develop tailor-made insurance products for consumers leveraging our cutting-edge technology such as big data analysis. All of the top five insurance products in terms of FYP generated through us in 2019 and 2020 are tailor-made insurance products.

As a result of the above, the FYP per consumer increased from RMB590.1 in 2018 to RMB859.1 in 2019 and further to RMB1,143.2 in 2020.

Cooperation with insurance carriers

We cooperate with insurance carriers to offer their standard insurance products or to design and develop tailor-made insurance products, and our relationship with insurance carriers is crucial to our success. As of December 31, 2020, we had established business cooperation with 62 insurance carriers. We need to keep the growth of our business, brand influence, value-added technology service capabilities and risk management capabilities so as to strengthen and deepen the cooperation with our existing insurance carriers. We also plan to expand our claim review service to cover the long-term insurance products and deepen the cooperation with long-term insurance product suppliers.

Operating efficiency and leverage

We have incurred significant costs and expenses in building our platform, growing our consumer base and developing capabilities in data analysis and technology. Our business model is highly scalable and our platform is built to support our continued growth. We expect our operating costs and expenses to decrease as a proportion of our revenues as we improve the operating efficiency of our platform and achieve more economies of scale.

Our total operating costs and expenses as a percentage of net operating revenue decreased from 179.0% in 2018 to 112.9% in 2019 and changed to 116.4% in 2020, within which general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net operating revenue changed from 53.0% in 2018 to 9.5% in 2019 and 13.4% in 2020. Our general and administrative expenses for year 2018, 2019 and 2020 included share-based compensation expenses of RMB47.8 million, RMB17.7 million and

RMB210.0 million (US$32.2 million), respectively. Excluding share-based compensation expenses, our general and administrative expenses represented 32.9%, 8.3% and 6.5% of our total net operating revenue in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. We pay marketing fees to our third-party traffic channel, and sales and marketing expenses represented 77.7% in 2018, 69.9% in 2019, and 70.4% in 2020 of total net operating revenue. We select third-party traffic channels and further optimize our consumer acquisition channels to reduce such operating costs as a percentage of our total revenues. Furthermore, we have invested in technology to accumulate and process multi-dimensional consumer data and transaction data, and we plan to conduct in-depth analysis as analysis of consumer needs will contribute to our consumer acquisition and conversion, product design and risk management capabilities, which in turn improves our overall operational margin. In addition, we have built up our CRM system to increase sales operating efficiency and better manage the sales personnel to reduce cost.

Key Components of Results of Operations

Operating revenue, net

We generate net operating revenue primarily from (i) providing insurance brokerage services to insurance carriers, (ii) membership fees and management fees from operating the mutual aid plans prior to our discontinuation of the mutual aid business in March 2021, and (iii) providing technical services to insurance carriers and other insurance brokerage or agency companies through our platforms. The following table sets forth the breakdown of our operating revenue, in amounts and as percentages of operating revenue for the years presented:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018				2019				2020
	RMB		%		RMB		%		RMB		US$		%
	(in thousands, except for percentage data)
Operating revenue, net:
Brokerage income
Short-term insurance brokerage income		120,635		50.7		1,134,984		75.1		2,045,191		313,439		67.6
Long-term insurance brokerage income		1,510		0.6		173,192		11.5		650,129		99,637		21.5

Subtotal		122,145		51.3		1,308,176		86.6		2,695,320		413,076		89.1

Management fee income		47,123		19.8		142,683		9.4		109,828		16,832		3.6
Technical service income		59,094		24.8		51,705		3.4		194,130		29,752		6.4
Other revenues		9,787		4.1		8,401		0.6		28,670		4,393		0.9

Total		238,149		100.0		1,510,965		100.0		3,027,948		464,053		100.0

Brokerage income. We derive brokerage income primarily from commission fees generated from distributing insurance products underwritten by insurance carriers through our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace. The commission fees we are entitled to receive are based on a percentage of the premiums our insurance consumers pay insurance carriers. Commission fee rates generally depend on the type of insurance products and the particular insurance carriers. Commission fees for each insurance policy, taking into account the estimated premium retention rate data, are recognized as our revenue upon policy effective dates. Our overall first year premium retention rate was 50.8% in 2019. The overall first year premium retention rate for 2020 is not yet available as it takes a full year to obtain all date to calculate this ratio. For long-term policies, the commission rate for premiums received after the first policy year is significantly lower than that for FYP. We believe

FYP is a strong indicator of brokerage income because it better demonstrates the brokerage income potential we may generate for an insurance policy.

Management fee income. Management fee income primarily consists of: (i) the membership fees we collected from upgraded mutual aid plan participants. The participants who paid such membership fees are entitled to enroll in our upgraded mutual aid plans and receive premium services, such as higher payout limit for payouts, multiple payouts, and consumer service by dedicated representatives. The membership fees are initially recorded as deferred revenue (for recurring members) and consumer advances (for new members). Revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the respective service period; and (ii) the management fee we charge as a percentage of each approved payout from payout applicants (excluding upgraded mutual aid plan participants), primarily to cover the costs we incurred in connection with verifying the facts associated with each payout, which is recognized overtime as the payout processing services are performed. Starting from March 2021, with the cessation of the Waterdrop Mutual Aid operation, the corresponding management fee income which accounted for 3.6% of total operating revenue in 2020, will no longer be a revenue stream for us in 2021.

On March 26, 2021, we announced the termination of the Waterdrop Mutual Aid business by the end of March 2021. In connection with this business adjustment, we voluntarily undertook to cover mutual aid participants’ medical expenses arising from medical conditions diagnosed by March 31, 2021 that would have been covered by the ceased mutual aid plan, subject to certain procedural requirements and eligibility criteria. In addition, we also offered a one-year complementary health insurance policy to each participant with a similar coverage as the participant’s original mutual aid plan.

There were 12.4 million active participants on our Mutual Aid platform when we ceased the operation, among whom 2.7 million have opted in the one-year complementary health insurance coverage as of the date of the prospectus. The one-year complementary health insurance coverage became effective on March 31, 2021.

Technical service income. We derive technical service income primarily from providing technical services to selected insurance carriers, which mainly include consumer relationship maintenance, consumer complaint management and claim review services through our CRM system and consumer behavioral analysis system which are linked to insurance carriers’ systems. We also provide marketing services to certain insurance carriers on our various website channels and apps. We also provide technical service, and further refer potential users to certain insurance brokerage or agency companies. We are exploring to broaden our technical service offerings and diversify our technical service income sources.

Other revenues. We derive other revenues mainly from commission revenue from online sales of agricultural produce and health products, and other service revenues on behalf of third-party merchants. We act as agent in this scenario and charge a commission fee at a certain percentage of the revenue achieved by the third-party merchants through our platforms.

Operating costs and expenses

Our operating costs and expenses consist of operating costs, sales and marketing expenses, general and administrative expenses, research and development expenses. The following table sets forth the breakdown of our total operating costs and expenses, in amounts and as percentages of net operating revenue for each of the years presented:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018				2019				2020
	RMB		%		RMB		%		RMB		US$		%
	(in thousands, except for percentage data)
Operating costs and expenses:
Operating costs		45,932		19.3		291,310		19.3		742,258		113,755		24.5
Sales and marketing expenses		184,943		77.7		1,056,494		69.9		2,130,535		326,519		70.4
General and administrative expenses		126,242		53.0		142,995		9.5		407,171		62,402		13.4
Research and development expenses		69,196		29.0		214,646		14.2		244,230		37,430		8.1

Total operating costs and expenses:		426,313		179.0		1,705,445		112.9		3,524,194		540,106		116.4

Operating costs. Operating costs primarily consists of (i) payroll and related expenses for insurance agents and consultants, employees involved in payout investigation function for mutual aid plans, and customer service personnel, (ii) payout investigation cost of mutual aid plans, which is in the form of service fee paid to third-party investigation companies only for approved cases; (iii) transaction fees charged by third-party payment platforms relating to insurance brokerage services and management of mutual aid plans, and (iv) charges for the usage of the server and cloud service incurred for operational support of the platforms, and the expenses of facilities and equipment, such as depreciation expenses, rental and others, attributed to our principal operations. We expect our operating costs to increase in absolute terms as our scale of business grows. However, as we improve the operating efficiency of our platform and achieve more economies of scale, we expect our operating costs as a percentage of our net operating revenue will decrease in the foreseeable future.

Sales and marketing expenses. Our sales and marketing expenses primarily consist of (i) marketing expenses for user acquisition and brand building, (ii) payroll and related expenses for employees involved in sales and marketing functions, (iii) the associated expenses of facilities and equipment, such as depreciation expenses, rental and others, and (iv) promotional rewards to our users, which mainly include gift insurance products and gift physical examination, etc.

General and administrative expenses. Our general and administrative expenses mainly consist of (i) payroll and related expenses for employees engaging in general corporate functions, including the share-based compensation expenses, (ii) transaction fees charged for medical crowdfunding operation and other general corporate purposes, and (iii) expenses associated with the use by these functions of facilities and equipment, such as rental and depreciation expenses. We expect that our general and administrative expenses will increase in the foreseeable future, as we hire additional personnel and incur additional expenses related to the anticipated growth of our business and our operation as a public company after the completion of this offering. However, we expect our general and administrative expenses as a percentage of our net operating revenue will remain stable or decrease in the foreseeable future.

Research and development expenses. Our research and development expenses mainly consist of (i) payroll and related expenses for employees involved in platform and new function

development and significant improvement, and (ii) charges for the usage of the server and cloud service incurred to support research, design, and development activities by research and development personnel, as well as the associated expenses of facilities and equipment, such as depreciation expenses, rental and others. We expect our research and development expenses will continue to increase as we plan to invest more resources to improve our technological capabilities and expand our business scale.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth a summary of our consolidated results of operations for the periods presented, both in absolute amount and as a percentage of our net operating revenue for the periods presented.


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018						2019						2020
	RMB			%			RMB			%			RMB			US$			%
	(in thousands, except for percentage data)
Operating revenue, net		238,149			100.0			1,510,965			100.0			3,027,948			464,053			100.0
Operating costs and expenses
Operating costs		(45,932	)		(19.3	)		(291,310	)		(19.3	)		(742,258	)		(113,755	)		(24.5	)
Sales and marketing expenses⁽¹⁾		(184,943	)		(77.7	)		(1,056,494	)		(69.9	)		(2,130,535	)		(326,519	)		(70.4	)
General and administrative expenses		(126,242	)		(53.0	)		(142,995	)		(9.5	)		(407,171	)		(62,402	)		(13.4	)
Research and development expenses		(69,196	)		(29.0	)		(214,646	)		(14.2	)		(244,230	)		(37,430	)		(8.1	)

Total operating costs and expenses:		(426,313	)		(179.0	)		(1,705,445	)		(112.9	)		(3,524,194	)		(540,106	)		(116.4	)

Operating loss		(188,164	)		(79.0	)		(194,480	)		(12.9	)		(496,246	)		(76,053	)		(16.4	)

Other income/(expenses)
Interest income		2,428			1.0			10,533			0.7			26,515			4,064			0.9
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			—			—			(150,685	)		(23,093	)		(5.0	)
Foreign currency exchange gain/(loss)		66			0.0			4,152			0.3			(1,335	)		(205	)		(0.0	)
Others, net		(1,967	)		(0.8	)		817			0.1			8,052			1,234			0.3

Loss before income tax, and share of results of equity method investee		(187,637	)		(78.8	)		(178,978	)		(11.8	)		(613,699	)		(94,053	)		(20.2	)

Income tax expense		(21,503	)		(9.0	)		(142,528	)		(9.4	)		(50,155	)		(7,687	)		(1.7	)
Share of results of equity method investee		(54	)		(0.0	)		(29	)		(0.0	)		(15	)		(2	)		(0.0	)

Net loss attributable to Waterdrop Inc.		(209,194	)		(87.8	)		(321,535	)		(21.2	)		(663,869	)		(101,742	)		(21.9	)

Deemed dividend on modification on preferred shares		—			—			—			—			(67,975	)		(10,418	)		(2.2	)
Deemed dividend upon issuance of warrants		—			—			—			—			(90,268	)		(13,834	)		(3.0	)
Preferred shares redemption value accretion		(22,230	)		(9.4	)		(136,839	)		(9.1	)		(285,668	)		(43,781	)		(9.4	)

Net loss attributable to ordinary shareholders		(231,424	)		(97.2	)		(458,374	)		(30.3	)		(1,107,780	)		(169,755	)		(36.5	)

Other comprehensive income/(loss):
Foreign currency translation adjustment		(740	)		(0.3	)		27,771			1.8			(14,008	)		(2,147	)		(0.5	)
Unrealized gains on available for sale investments, net of tax		—			—			209			0.0			1,724			264			0.1

Total comprehensive loss		(209,934	)		(88.1	)		(293,555	)		(19.4	)		(676,153	)		(103,625	)		(22.3	)

Note:

(1)	The breakdown of sales and marketing expenses is as follows:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018		2019		2020
	RMB		RMB		RMB		US$
	(in thousands)
Marketing expenses for user acquisition and brand building		86,299		793,419		1,743,014		267,129
Payroll and related expenses for employees		79,447		201,147		210,308		32,231
Expenses of facilities and equipment		7,408		11,333		17,274		2,647
Promotional rewards to our users		3,057		25,701		43,652		6,690
Others		8,732		24,894		116,287		17,822

Total sales and marketing expenses		184,943		1,056,494		2,130,535		326,519

Year Ended December 31, 2020 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2019

Operating revenue, net

Our net operating revenue increased by 100.4% from RMB1,511.0 million for 2019 to RMB3,027.9 million (US$464.1 million) in 2020, which was primarily due to the substantial increase in net operating revenue from brokerage income, partially offset by the decrease in net operating revenue from management fee income.

The net operating revenue from brokerage income increased by 106.0% from RMB1,308.2 million in 2019 to RMB2,695.3 million (US$413.1 million) in 2020, which was mainly due to the (i) increase in the FYP generated through our platform from RMB6,668 million in 2019 to RMB14,426 million in 2020, and (ii) optimized product mix with more long-term health and life insurance products, the FYP from which accounted for approximately 17.4% of the total FYP generated through us in 2020. The rapid growth of FYP was in turn driven by increase of insurance consumers from 7.8 million in 2019 to 12.6 million in 2020 and the increase of FYP per consumer from RMB859.1 in 2019 to RMB1,143.2 in 2020.

The net operating revenue from management fee income decreased by 23.1% from RMB142.7 million in 2019 to RMB109.8 million (US$16.8 million) in 2020, which was mainly due to (i) the decrease of RMB16.5 million in membership fees we collected from participants in line with the decrease in the number of participants who subscribed for upgraded services for mutual aid plan they enrolled; (ii) the decrease of RMB16.3 million in management fees as a result of the decrease in active plan participants.

The net operating revenue from technical service income increased from RMB51.7 million in 2019 to RMB194.1 million (US$29.8 million) in 2020, primarily due to the increase of RMB157.9 million of technical services to insurance brokerage or agency companies.

Operating costs

Our operating costs increased by 154.8% from RMB291.3 million in 2019 to RMB742.3 million (US$113.8 million) in 2020, which was mainly due to (i) RMB211.1 million increase in personnel cost as our insurance agents and consultants, payout investigation and customer service team rapidly increased to support the business growth, and (ii) RMB131.7 million increase in outsourced customer service fee in line with our growing business.

Sales and marketing expenses

Our sales and marketing expenses increased by 101.7% from RMB1,056.5 million in 2019 to RMB2,130.5 million (US$326.5 million) in 2020, which was mainly due to (i) RMB949.6 million

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increase in marketing expenses to third-party traffic channels as a result of our business expansion and branding promotion, and (ii) RMB71.7 million increase in outsourced sales and marketing service fee to third parties.

General and administrative expenses

Our general and administrative expenses increased by 184.8% from RMB143.0 million in 2019 to RMB407.2 million (US$62.4 million) in 2020, which was mainly due to increase in personnel cost, in particular share-based compensation expenses, as a result of our growing business.

Research and development expenses

Our research and development expenses increased by 13.8% from RMB214.6 million in 2019 to RMB244.2 million (US$37.4 million) in 2020. The increase was mainly attributable to RMB23.3 million increase in research and development personnel cost and related expenses, which was due to the growth of our research and development team as we continue to strengthen our technological capabilities.

Interest income

Our interest income increased substantially from RMB10.5 million in 2019 to RMB26.5 million (US$4.1 million) in 2020. The increase was mainly attributable to increase in cash balance as a result of the receipt of proceeds from private equity financings in 2020 and interest income from our short-term investments.

Net loss

As a result of the foregoing, our net loss increased by 106.5% from RMB321.5 million in 2019 to RMB663.9 million (US$101.7 million) in 2020.

Year Ended December 31, 2019 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2018

Operating revenue, net

Our net operating revenue increased substantially by 534.6% from RMB238.1 million in 2018 to RMB1,511.0 million in 2019, which was primarily due to the substantial increase in net operating revenue from brokerage income and management fee income.

The net operating revenue from brokerage income increased by nearly ten times from RMB122.1 million in 2018 to RMB1,308.2 million in 2019, which was mainly due to the (i) increase in the FYP generated through our platform from RMB972 million in 2018 to RMB6,668 million in 2019, and (ii) optimized product mix with more long-term health and life insurance products, the FYP from which accounted for approximately 8.3% of the total FYP generated through us in 2019, after we started offering long-term insurance products at the end of 2018. The rapid growth of FYP was in turn driven by increase of insurance consumers from 1.6 million in 2018 to 7.8 million in 2019 and the increase of FYP per consumer from RMB590.1 in 2018 to RMB859.1 in 2019.

The net operating revenue from management fee income increased by 203.0% from RMB47.1 million in 2018 to RMB142.7 million in 2019, which was mainly due to the (i) increase of RMB56.5 million in management fees as we started to charge at a percentage of each successful payout in 2019, and (ii) increase of RMB39.0 million in membership fees we collected from participants in line with the increase in the number of participants who subscribed for upgraded services for mutual aid plan they enrolled.

The net operating revenue from technical service income decreased from RMB59.1 million in 2018 to RMB51.7 million in 2019, primarily due to the decrease in the technical service income from

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marketing services we provided to insurance carriers on our various website channels and APPs as we gradually diverted more marketing resources for our own products and services to better utilize our user traffic, and consequently generated less external revenue.

Operating costs

Our operating costs increased by 534.6% substantially from RMB45.9 million in 2018 to RMB291.3 million in 2019, which was mainly due to (i) RMB138.7 million increase in personnel cost as our insurance agents and consultants, payout investigation and customer service team rapidly increased to support the business growth, and (ii) RMB36.1 million increase in outsourced customer service fee in line with our growing business.

Sales and marketing expenses

Our sales and marketing expenses increased substantially from RMB184.9 million in 2018 to RMB1,056.5 million in 2019, which was mainly due to (i) RMB707.1 million increase in marketing expenses to third-party traffic channels as a result of our business expansion and branding promotion, and (ii) RMB121.7 million increase in payroll and related expenses associated with our offline medical crowdfunding promotional team.

General and administrative expenses

Our general and administrative expenses increased by 13.3% from RMB126.2 million in 2018 to RMB143.0 million in 2019, which was mainly due to increase in personnel cost and rental for our headquarter function, as a result of our growing business.

Research and development expenses

Our research and development expenses increased by 210.1% from RMB69.2 million in 2018 to RMB214.6 million in 2019. The increase was mainly attributable to (i) RMB121.9 million increase in research and development personnel cost and related expenses, which was due to the growth of our research and development team as we continue to strengthen our technological capabilities, and (ii) RMB17.0 million increase in research and development related service expenses, such as charges for the usage of servers and cloud services.

Interest income

Our interest income increased substantially from RMB2.4 million in 2018 to RMB10.5 million in 2019. The increase was mainly attributable to increase in cash balance as a result of the receipt of proceeds from private equity financings in 2019.

Net loss

As a result of the foregoing, our net loss increased by 53.7% from RMB209.2 million in 2018 to RMB321.5 million in 2019.

Selected Quarterly Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our unaudited consolidated quarterly results of operations for each of the eight quarters from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020. You should read the following table in conjunction with our audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus. We have prepared this unaudited condensed consolidated quarterly financial data on the same basis as we have prepared our audited consolidated financial statements. The unaudited condensed consolidated financial data include all

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adjustments, consisting only of normal and recurring adjustments, that our management considered necessary for a fair statement of our financial position and results of operation for the quarters presented.


	For the Three Months Ended
	March 31, 2019			June 30, 2019			September 30, 2019			December 31, 2019			March 31, 2020			June 30, 2020			September 30, 2020			December 31, 2020
	(Unaudited)
	(in RMB thousands)
Operating revenue, net		140,760			330,383			502,075			537,747			653,795			680,839			862,971			830,343
Total operating costs and expenses		(209,144	)		(299,569	)		(499,326	)		(697,406	)		(764,864	)		(673,636	)		(982,601	)		(1,103,093	)

Operating profit/(loss)		(68,384	)		30,814			2,749			(159,659	)		(111,069	)		7,203			(119,630	)		(272,750	)

Interest income/(expense)		(45	)		3,370			3,480			3,728			5,312			5,525			6,845			8,833
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			—			—			—			—			(441	)		(150,244	)
Foreign currency exchange gain/(loss)		343			(2,554	)		(28	)		6,391			5,235			941			(5,204	)		(2,307	)
Others, net		(216	)		281			(735	)		1,487			1,632			2,889			4,432			(901	)

Profit/(loss) before income tax, and share of results of equity method investee		(68,302	)		31,911			5,466			(148,053	)		(98,890	)		16,558			(113,998	)		(417,369	)
Income tax benefit/(expense)		(16,155	)		(40,302	)		(54,183	)		(31,888	)		(21,838	)		(16,575	)		(25,313	)		13,571
Share of results of equity method investee.		8			(26	)		(4	)		(7	)		(3	)		(2	)		(10	)		—

Net loss attributable to Waterdrop Inc.		(84,449	)		(8,417	)		(48,721	)		(179,948	)		(120,731	)		(19	)		(139,321	)		(403,798	)

We do not consider our results of operation subject to strong seasonality, as insurance consumers make their purchase of healthcare protection insurance policy throughout the year. The fluctuation presented above in the eight quarters are the combined result of our continuing growth of scale as well as certain one-off factors and specific business decisions. We also greatly expanded our sales and marketing force to promote sales of long-term health and life insurances in the fourth quarter of 2020, which affected our net profitability of that quarter.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We present the non-GAAP financial measures because they are used by our management to evaluate our operating performance and formulate business plans. Adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA enable our management to assess our operating results without considering the impact of share-based compensation expense, foreign currency exchange gain or losses, fair value change of warrant, share of results of equity method investee, depreciation, interest income and income tax expense. We believe that adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA help identify underlying trends in our business that could otherwise be distorted by the effect of certain expenses that are included in net loss. We also believe that the use of the non-GAAP measures facilitate investors’ assessment of our operating performance. We believe that adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA provide useful information about our operating results, enhance the overall understanding of our past performance

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and future prospects and allow for greater visibility with respect to key metrics used by our management in its financial and operational decision making.

The table below sets forth a reconciliation of our net loss to adjusted net loss and adjusted EBITDA for the years indicated:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Net loss		(209,194	)		(321,535	)		(663,869	)		(101,742	)
Add:
Share-based compensation expense		47,812			27,996			227,828			34,917
Foreign currency exchange (gain)/loss		(66	)		(4,152	)		1,335			205
Fair value change of warrant		—			—			150,685			23,093
Share of results of equity method investee		54			29			15			2

Adjusted net loss		(161,394	)		(297,662	)		(284,006	)		(43,525	)
Depreciation and amortization		1,983			6,687			13,065			2,003
Interest income		(2,428	)		(10,533	)		(26,515	)		(4,064	)
Income tax expense		21,503			142,528			50,155			7,687

Adjusted EBITDA		(140,336	)		(158,980	)		(247,301	)		(37,899	)

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Cash flows and working capital

We had net cash used in operating activities of RMB211.0 million in 2018, RMB532.9 million in 2019, and RMB777.1 million (US$119.1 million) in 2020, respectively. Our primary sources of liquidity have been proceeds from preferred share issuance. As of December 31, 2020, we had RMB1,062.0 million (US$162.8 million) in cash and cash equivalents, of which approximately 77.0% were held in Renminbi and the remainder was mainly held in U.S. dollars.

We believe our cash on hand will be sufficient to meet our current and anticipated needs for working capital and capital expenditure requirement for at least the next 12 months.

Our restricted cash was RMB329.7 million and RMB261.4 million (US$40.1 million) as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively. Our restricted cash primarily consists of premiums collected by us from the insurance consumers in a fiduciary capacity until disbursed to the insurance carriers. Restricted cash also includes guarantee deposits. We pay guarantee deposit required by China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission in order to protect insurance premium appropriation by insurance broker and agency. Furthermore, guarantee deposit for foreign exchange settlement was paid in 2019 and 2020 to a commercial bank in order to carry out foreign exchange settlement.

Our accounts receivable represent primarily brokerage commission fee receivable from insurance carriers and technical service fees receivable from insurance carriers. As of December 31,

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2019 and 2020, our accounts receivable were RMB252.5 million and RMB539.8 million (US$82.7 million), respectively. The increase was due to the growth of our business scale. Our accounts receivable turnover days decreased from 66 days in 2019 to 52 days in 2020. The decrease was primarily due to improved collection management.

Our contract assets are recorded for arrangements when we have provided the insurance brokerage services but for which the related commission payments are not yet due. Contract assets represent primarily the brokerage commission fee that is contingent upon the future premium payment of the insurance policy holders and retention-based bonus. As of December 31, 2019 and 2020, our contract assets were RMB617.7 million and RMB848.6 million (US$130.0 million), respectively.

Our prepaid expense and other assets represent primarily (i) the fund receivable from external payment service providers through which we collect and transfer insurance premiums to insurance carriers, and donors’ donation and funds paid by mutual aid plan participants received by our external payment service provider prior to those being transferred to custodian bank, and (ii) the advances to suppliers, such as the prepayments to third-party traffic channels. As of December 31, 2019 and 2020, our prepaid expense and other assets were RMB235.3 million and RMB651.1 million (US$99.8 million), respectively.

Insurance premium payables represent insurance premiums we collected on behalf of insurance carriers from the insurance consumers but have not yet been remitted to insurance carriers as of the balance sheet dates. As of December 31, 2019 and 2020, our insurance premium payables were RMB320.2 million and RMB607.3 million (US$93.1 million), respectively.

Our accrued expenses and other current liabilities represent primarily (i) accrued marketing and selling expenses, (ii) payroll and welfare payable, and (iii) payable related to mutual aid plans and medical crowdfunding business, which mainly represents the funds we collected through the third-party payment platforms that has not been transferred to custodian bank. Our accrued expenses and other current liabilities were RMB496.5 million and RMB595.6 million (US$91.3 million) as of December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Although we consolidate the results of our VIEs, we only have access to the assets or earnings of our VIEs through our contractual arrangements with our VIEs and their shareholders. See “Corporate History and Structure.” For restrictions and limitations on liquidity and capital resources as a result of our corporate structure, see “— Holding Company Structure.”

Substantially all of our operating revenue have been, and we expect they are likely to continue to be, in the form of Renminbi. Under existing PRC foreign exchange regulations, payments of current account items, including profit distributions, interest payments and trade and service-related foreign exchange transactions, can be made in foreign currencies without prior SAFE approval as long as certain routine procedural requirements are fulfilled. Therefore, our PRC subsidiary is allowed to pay dividends in foreign currencies to us without prior SAFE approval by following certain routine procedural requirements. However, current PRC regulations permit our PRC subsidiary to pay dividends to us only out of its accumulated profits, if any, determined in accordance with Chinese accounting standards and regulations. Our PRC subsidiary is required to set aside at least 10% of its after-tax profits after making up previous years’ accumulated losses each year, if any, to fund certain reserve funds until the total amount set aside reaches 50% of its registered capital. These reserves are not distributable as cash dividends. Historically, our PRC subsidiary has not paid dividends to us, and it will not be able to pay dividends until it generates accumulated profits. Furthermore, capital account transactions, which include foreign direct investment and loans, must be approved by and/or registered with SAFE, its local branches and certain local banks.

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As a Cayman Islands exempted company and offshore holding company, we are permitted under PRC laws and regulations to provide funding to our PRC subsidiaries only through loans or capital contributions, subject to the approval of government authorities and limits on the amount of capital contributions and loans. This may delay us from using the proceeds from this offering to make loans or capital contributions to our PRC subsidiaries. We expect to invest substantially all of the proceeds from this offering into our PRC operations for general corporate purposes within the business scopes of our PRC subsidiaries and our VIEs. See “Risk Factors — Risks Relating to Doing Business in China — PRC regulation of loans to and direct investment in PRC entities by offshore holding companies may delay us from using the proceeds of this offering to make loans or additional capital contributions to our PRC subsidiaries and to make loans to our VIEs, which could materially and adversely affect our liquidity and our ability to fund and expand our business.”

The following table sets forth the movements of our cash flows for the periods presented:


	For the Year Ended December 31,
	2018			2019			2020
	RMB			RMB			RMB			US$
	(in thousands)
Selected Consolidated Cash Flow Data:
Net cash used in operating activities		(211,029	)		(532,895	)		(777,108	)		(119,097	)
Net cash provided by/(used in) investing activities		31,988			(45,955	)		(1,217,701	)		(186,621	)
Net cash provided by financing activities		362,669			1,472,775			2,050,890			314,313
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents		(1,973	)		27,342			(26,884	)		(4,120	)

Net increase in cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash		181,655			921,267			29,197			4,475
Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of year		191,230			372,885			1,294,152			198,337

Total cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of year		372,885			1,294,152			1,323,349			202,812

Operating activities

Net cash used in operating activities in 2020 was RMB777.1 million (US$119.1 million). The difference between the net loss of RMB663.9 million (US$101.7 million) and negative operating cash flow of RMB777.1 million was the result of additional cash of RMB504.8 million used due to changes in working capital accounts, partially offset by adding back non-cash expenses items such as share-based compensation expenses of RMB227.8 million, fair value change of the warrant of RMB150.7 million we issued to one of our existing shareholders in June 2020 which provided the shareholder with the right to subscribe for or purchase certain number of additional preferred shares, and depreciation of property, equipment and software of RMB12.9 million. The changes in working capital accounts mainly include (i) RMB385.6 million increase in prepaid expense and other assets, (ii) RMB286.8 million increase in accounts receivable, and (iii) RMB230.9 million increase in contract assets, partially offset by (i) RMB287.1 million increase in insurance premium payables, (ii) RMB47.4 million increase in accrued expenses and other current liabilities, and (iii) RMB49.5 million increase in deferred tax liabilities.

Specifically, the increase in prepaid expense and other assets was primarily due to (i) the increase in fund receivable from external payment service providers through which we collect various fund in our operation, and (ii) the increase in advances to suppliers as a result of increase in the prepayments to third-party traffic channels. The increases in accounts receivable and contract

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assets were primarily due to the increase in our brokerage income as a result of the growth of our business scale. The increase in accrued expenses and other current liabilities was primarily due to (i) increase in marketing expenses to be paid to our third-party user traffic channels, and (ii) increase in share-based compensation liabilities, partially offset by the decrease in payable related to mutual aid plans and medical crowdfunding as a result of the shortened settlement cycle with certain third-party payment platform. The increase in insurance premium payables was primarily due to the increase in the FYP generated through our platform from RMB6,668 million in 2019 to RMB14,426 million in 2020. The net cash outflow from increase in insurance premium payables (premium collected) offset by the fund receivable from external payment service providers (premium receivable) was RMB81.6 million in 2020. The increase in deferred tax liabilities was primarily due to the increase in contract assets.

Net cash used in operating activities in 2019 was RMB532.9 million. The difference between the net loss of RMB321.5 million and negative operating cash flow of RMB532.9 million was the result of additional cash of RMB246.1 million used due to changes in working capital accounts, partially offset by adding back non-cash expenses items such as share-based compensation expenses of RMB28.0 million, and depreciation of property and equipment of RMB6.7 million. The changes in working capital accounts mainly include (i) RMB528.6 million increase in contract assets, (ii) RMB153.7 million increase in prepaid expense and other assets, and (iii) RMB147.3 million increase in accounts receivable, partially offset by (i) RMB303.4 million increase in accrued expenses and other current liabilities, (ii) RMB154.3 million increase in insurance premium payables, and (iii) RMB142.3 million increase in deferred tax liabilities.

Specifically, the increases in contract assets and accounts receivable were primarily due to the increase in our brokerage income as a result of the growth of our business scale. The increase in prepaid expense and other assets was primarily due to (i) the increase in fund receivable from external payment service providers through which we collect various fund in our operation, and (ii) the increase in advances to suppliers as a result of increase in the prepayments to third-party traffic channels. The increase in accrued expenses and other current liabilities was primarily due to the increases in marketing expenses to be paid to our external user acquisition channels, payroll and welfare payable and payable related to mutual aid plans and medical crowdfunding business in line with our growing business. The increase in insurance premium payables was primarily due to the increase in the FYP generated through our platform from RMB972 million in 2018 to RMB6,668 million in 2019. The net cash inflow from increase in insurance premium payables (premium collected) offset by the fund receivable from external payment service providers (premium receivable) was RMB148.8 million in 2019. The increase in deferred tax liabilities was primarily due to the increase in contract assets.

Net cash used in operating activities in 2018 was RMB211.0 million. The difference between the net loss of RMB209.2 million and negative operating cash flow of RMB211.0 million was the result of additional cash of RMB51.7 million used due to changes in working capital accounts, partially offset by adding back non-cash expenses items such as share-based compensation expense of RMB47.8 million. The changes in working capital accounts mainly include (i) RMB100.9 million increase in accounts receivable, (ii) RMB89.1 million increase in contract assets, (iii) RMB45.9 million decrease in accrued expenses and other current liabilities, and (iv) RMB33.8 million increase in prepaid expense and other assets, partially offset by (i) RMB158.7 million increase in insurance premium payables, and (ii) RMB34.4 million increase in deferred revenue.

Investing activities

Net cash used in investing activities in 2020 was RMB1,217.7 million (US$186.6 million), consisting primarily of net cash used in purchase of short-term investment products, net cash used

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to acquire Tairui Insurance Agency Co., Ltd. and cash paid for purchase of property, equipment and software.

Net cash used in investing activities in 2019 was RMB46.0 million, consisting primarily of net cash used in purchase of short-term investment products and cash paid for purchase of property, equipment and software.

Net cash provided by investing activities in 2018 was RMB32.0 million, consisting primarily of net cash from maturity of short-term investment products, partially offset by cash paid for purchase of property, equipment and software.

Financing activities

Net cash provided by financing activities in 2020 was RMB2,050.9 million (US$314.3 million), consisting primarily of net proceeds from issuance of convertible redeemable preferred shares.

Net cash provided by financing activities in 2019 was RMB1,472.8 million, consisting primarily of net proceeds from issuance of convertible redeemable preferred shares, partially offset by the repayment of short-term borrowings.

Net cash provided by financing activities in 2018 was RMB362.7 million, consisting primarily of net proceeds from issuance of convertible redeemable preferred shares and net proceeds from short-term borrowings.

Critical Accounting Policies

We prepare our financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, which requires our management to make judgments, estimates and assumptions. We continually evaluate these judgments, estimates and assumptions based on our own historical experience, knowledge and assessment of current business and other conditions, our expectations regarding the future based on available information and various assumptions that we believe to be reasonable, which together form our basis for making judgments about matters that are not readily apparent from other sources. Since the use of estimates is an integral component of the financial reporting process, our actual results could differ from those estimates. Some of our accounting policies require a higher degree of judgment than others in their application.

The selection of critical accounting policies, the judgments and other uncertainties affecting application of those policies and the sensitivity of reported results to changes in conditions and assumptions are factors that should be considered when reviewing our financial statements. We believe the following accounting policies involve the most significant judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our financial statements. You should read the following description of critical accounting policies, judgments and estimates in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and other disclosures included in this prospectus.

Revenue Recognition

Insurance Brokerage Services

We provide insurance brokerage services distributing various health and life insurance products on behalf of insurance carriers (our customers). As an agent of the insurance carrier, we sell insurance policies on behalf of the insurance carrier and earn brokerage commissions determined as a percentage of premiums paid by the insured. We have identified our promise to sell insurance policies on behalf of an insurance carrier as the performance obligation in our contracts with the insurance carriers. Our performance obligation to the insurance carrier is satisfied and commission revenue is recognized at the point in time when an insurance policy becomes effective.

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The Group also provides policyholder inquiry (call center) services which is considered administrative in nature that transfers minimal benefit to the customer. Additionally, certain contracts with insurance carriers include a promise to provide certain services to the insurance carrier such as information gathering and payment collection. We have concluded that such services are immaterial in the context of the contract. We accrue the costs of providing such services when the related revenue is recognized (i.e., upon the effective date of the policy).

The term for short-term health insurance products sold by us is typically 12 months, while the term for long-term health and life insurance products sold by us typically ranges from 6 to 30 years. The insurance carrier pays us a commission either upfront or in monthly or annual instalments based on the underlying cash flows of the insurance policy (i.e., payments of the related premiums for the insurance policy purchased). Our contract terms can give rise to variable consideration due to the nature of its commission structure (e.g., policy changes or cancellations).

We determine the transaction price of our contracts by estimating commissions that we expect to be entitled to over the premium collection term of the policy based on historical experience regarding premium retention and assumptions about future customer behaviour and market conditions. Such estimates are ‘constrained’ in accordance with ASC 606. That is, we use the expected value method and only include estimated amounts in the transaction price to the extent it is probable that a significant reversal of cumulative revenue recognized for such transactions will not occur.

For certain long-term insurance products sold, we are also entitled to a performance bonus from insurance carriers if the retention rate for certain periods exceeds a predetermined percentage. As the consideration for the bonus is contingent on the occurrence (or nonoccurrence) of a future event, the bonus represents variable consideration. Consistent with the policy described above, we use the expected value method to estimate the variable consideration and may constrain the estimate to the extent that it is probable that a significant reversal of revenue in the future will not occur.

Management of Mutual Aid Platform

We, as a manager and a fiduciary of the plan, operated a mutual aid platform, which consisted of several mutual aid plans that provided its participants with health protection against different types of critical illnesses.

Prior to March 2019, we had provided plan managing services free of charge. Beginning in March 2019, we charged a management fee calculated as a fixed percentage of each approved payout. Our managing services primarily comprised daily payout processing activities that were substantially the same and had the same pattern of transfer to the customer. As such, we had identified a single performance obligation, a series of distinct services, related to the mutual aid platform managing services in its contracts, which was satisfied overtime. The transaction price represented variable consideration in its entirety. We had determined that the variable consideration related specifically to our efforts to perform and transfer payout processing services during the period, which were distinct from the services we provided in other periods. Therefore, as the payout processing services were performed, the variable consideration earned during the period was allocated to those services and recognized in the period control transfers.

Participants also had a choice to upgrade their plan. The upgraded plan provided them with additional protection and further reimbursements if the illness was cancer-related and the payout from the basic plan was insufficient. Under this plan, we also assigned a dedicated service representative to the participant during the membership period. We charged an annual membership fee at the beginning of each period. We determined that the nature of the membership service was a stand-ready obligation to provide management services to the participants of this plan as well as continuous and dedicated customer service representatives and accordingly, we recognized the membership fee ratably over the membership period after the waiting period ends.

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Both the basic and the upgraded mutual plans included a waiting period before any new participant could submit a claim for reimbursements. During that period, any membership fee received from the upgraded plan was refundable and was recorded in accrued expenses and other current liabilities in the consolidated balance sheet.

Technical Services

We provide various technical services to certain insurance carriers through our customer relationship management system and customer behavioral analysis system. Under these arrangements, we provide customer relationship maintenance, customer complaint management and claim review services for insurance carriers. We have identified ourselves as a principal in these transactions. Consideration received for technical services reflect stand-alone selling prices and are settled monthly based on standard unit prices and service volumes rendered during the period. Revenue is recognized overtime as the insurance carriers are simultaneously receiving and consuming the benefits of those services.

As part of the technical services offering, we also provide marketing services to certain insurance carriers on our various website channels and mobile apps, including pay for performance marketing services whereby customers are charged based on effective clicks on their insurance product information, and display advertising services that allow customers to place advertisements on various websites or mobile apps. We recognize revenues from pay-for-performance marketing services based on effective clicks, and recognize revenues from display advertising services based on the number of articles published or the number of times that the advertisement has been displayed. Revenues from both types of transactions are recorded at a point in time when the performance obligation to deliver those marketing services is satisfied.

We also provide technical services to selected insurance brokerage or agency companies where we allow other insurance brokerage or agency companies to use our CRM system without taking possession of our software. We have determined that the insurance brokerage or agency companies are our customers. Consideration received for such services include monthly fees that provide other insurance brokerage or agency companies with access to our CRM. The related revenue is recognized overtime over the contract term. In addition, we further refer potential users to other insurance brokerage or agency companies and is entitled to a variable consideration calculated as a percentage of the first two-year’s policy premiums to be received by the insurance brokerage or agency companies for insurance policies sold through the our CRM system. We recognize the referral revenue at a point in time upon the initial effectiveness of the policy as we have no further obligation to its customer after the initial sale of a policy. We estimate the services fee that it expects to be entitled to over the first two-year of the long-term insurance policy and such estimates are ‘constrained’ in accordance with ASC 606.

Other Revenues

Other revenues mainly include commission revenue from online sale of agriculture products and health products, and other service revenues on behalf of third-party merchants. Our performance obligation under these contracts is to arrange for the provision of the specified goods or services by those third-party merchants. Revenue is recognized for the net amount of consideration we are entitled to retain in exchange for our services at a point in time when our performance obligation to facilitate an online sale through our platform is satisfied.

Consolidation of Variable Interest Entity

PRC regulations currently limit direct foreign ownership of business entities providing value-added telecommunication services and certain other businesses in the PRC where certain licenses

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are required for the provision of such services. To comply with these PRC regulations, we conduct a substantial majority of our business through our VIEs and their subsidiaries.

Our wholly-owned PRC subsidiaries hold the power to direct the activities of our VIEs and their subsidiaries that most significantly affect our economic performance and bear the economic risks and receive the economic benefits of our VIEs and their subsidiaries through a series of contractual agreements with VIEs and/or their nominee shareholders, including:

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Exclusive Business Cooperation Agreement

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Equity Pledge Agreement

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Exclusive Call Option Agreement

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Power of Attorney

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Spouse Consent Letters

As a result of these contractual arrangements, we believe we are entitled to direct the activities that most significantly affect the economic performance of the VIEs, and receive the economic benefits of the VIEs. In making the conclusion that we are the primary beneficiary of VIEs, we believe our rights under the exclusive call option agreements and powers of attorney have reinforced our abilities to direct the activities most significantly impacting VIEs’ economic performance. We also believe that this ability to exercise control ensures that the VIEs would continue to execute and renew service agreements and pay service fees to us. By charging service fees, and by ensuring that service agreements are executed and renewed indefinitely, we have the rights to receive substantially all of the economic benefits from the VIEs and their subsidiaries. Accordingly, as the primary beneficiary of the VIEs in accordance with U.S. GAAP, we consolidate its financial results and assets and liabilities in our consolidated financial statements.

As advised by our PRC legal counsel, the above contractual agreements are valid, binding and enforceable under PRC laws. However, our PRC legal counsel has also advised us that as there are substantial uncertainties regarding the interpretation and application of PRC laws and regulations, and we cannot assure you that the PRC government would agree that our corporate structure or any of the above-mentioned contractual arrangements.

Income Taxes

Current income taxes are provided for in accordance with the laws of the relevant tax authorities. Deferred income taxes are recognized when temporary differences exist between the tax bases of assets and liabilities and their reported amounts in the financial statements. Net operating loss carry forwards and credits are applied using enacted statutory tax rates applicable to future years. Deferred tax assets are reduced by a valuation allowance when, in the opinion of management, it is more-likely-than-not that a portion of or all of the deferred tax assets will not be realized. The impact of an uncertain income tax position is recognized at the largest amount that is more-likely-than-not to be sustained upon audit by the relevant tax authority. An uncertain income tax position will not be recognized if it has less than a 50% likelihood of being sustained. Interest and penalties on income taxes will be classified as a component of the provisions for income taxes.

Fair Value of Common Share

Prior to this offering, we were a private company with no quoted market prices for our common shares. We therefore made estimates of the fair value of our common shares at various dates for the purpose of determining the fair value of our common shares at the date of the grant of share-based compensation awards to our employees and external consultants to determine the grant date fair

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value of the award. The following table sets forth the fair value of our common shares estimated at different times with the assistance from an independent valuation firm:


Date	Class of Shares	Fair Value per Share		DLOM			Discount Rate			Purpose of Valuation
November 02, 2018	Ordinary shares	US$	0.07		13	%		23	%	To determine the intrinsic value of the beneficial conversion feature of Series B preferred shares and the fair value of common shares

March 28, 2019	Ordinary shares	US$	0.12		12	%		22	%	To determine the intrinsic value of the beneficial conversion feature of Series C preferred shares and the fair value of share option grant

June 30, 2019	Ordinary shares	US$	0.13		12	%		22	%	To determine the fair value of share option grant

October 28, 2019	Ordinary shares	US$	0.15		12	%		22	%	To determine the intrinsic value of the beneficial conversion feature of Series C+ preferred shares and the fair value of share option grant

December 31, 2019	Ordinary shares	US$	0.17		12	%		21	%	To determine the fair value of share option grant

March 16, 2020	Ordinary shares	US$	0.20		12	%		21	%	To determine the intrinsic value of the beneficial conversion feature of Series C++ preferred shares and the fair value of share option grant

June 28, 2020	Ordinary shares	US$	0.30		10	%		20	%	To determine the intrinsic value of the beneficial conversion feature of Series D preferred shares and the fair value of share option grant

September 30, 2020	Ordinary shares	US$	0.39		8	%		19	%	To determine the fair value of share option granted

December 31, 2020	Ordinary shares	US$	0.55		3	%		19	%	To determine the fair value of share option granted

The valuations of our ordinary shares were performed using methodologies, approaches and assumptions consistent with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Audit and Accounting Practice Aid Series: Valuation of Privately-Held-Company Equity Securities Issued as Compensation, or the AICPA Practice Guide. The determination of the fair value of our ordinary shares requires complex and subjective judgments to be made regarding our projected financial and operating results, our unique business risks, the liquidity of our shares and our operating history and prospects at the time of valuation.

In determining our equity value, we applied the discounted cash flow analysis based on our projected cash flow using our best estimate as of the valuation date. The discounted cash flow method involves applying an appropriate discount rate to future cash flow to present value. The future cash flows represent our management’s best estimation as of the measurement date. The projected cash flow estimation includes, among others, analysis of projected revenue growth, gross margins and terminal value based on our business plan. In determining an appropriate discount rate, we have considered the weighted average cost of capital, by considering a number of factors including risk-free rate, comparative industry risk, equity risk premium, company size and non-systematic risk factors. We also applied a discount for lack of marketability, or DLOM to reflect the fact that there is no ready market for our shares in a closely-held company like us. Such

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valuation estimates will no longer be necessary once we go public and our underlying shares begin trading as we will rely on the market price to determine the market value of our common stock.

Share-Based Compensation

In 2019, we adopted the 2018 share incentive plan (the “2018 Plan”), which permits the grant of three types of awards: options, restricted shares, and restricted share units. We account for these share-based awards in accordance with ASC 718 Compensation — Stock Compensation.

For equity classified stock option awards, we measure the cost of the share-based awards based on the grant date fair value of the equity instrument. We have elected to recognize compensation expenses using the straight-line method for all employee equity awards granted with graded vesting provided that the amount of compensation cost recognized at any date is at least equal to the portion of the grant-date fair value of the options that are vested at that date, over the requisite service period of the award, with a corresponding impact reflected in additional paid-in capital. We elect to recognize forfeitures when they occur.

For liability classified stock option awards, the awards contain a repurchase feature that is probable for the grantor to prevent the grantee from bearing the risks and rewards for a reasonable period of time from the date the options vested. Upon an employee’s termination, the Group reclassifies any vested awards held by the employees into liability as the repurchase price is below fair value. The Group subsequently measures the liability awards at fair value at each reporting date until the date of settlement, with changes in fair value recognized as compensation expense.

In determining the value of share options, the binomial option pricing model was applied. The key assumptions used to determine the fair value of the options at the respective grant dates were as follows:


	Year Ended December 31,
	2019			2020
Risk free rate of interest⁽¹⁾		3.12% - 3.42	%		2.51% - 3.29	%
Volatility⁽²⁾		26% - 28	%		26% - 28	%
Dividend yield⁽³⁾		—			—