Exploring 111, Inc. (YI) Investor Profile: Who’s Buying and Why?

You're looking at 111, Inc. (YI) and wondering why the institutional money is moving, especially after a volatile 2025. Honestly, the investor profile here is a fascinating study in conflicting signals, and you need to see who's really in the driver's seat. While the company reported a net loss of about -$10.31 million for the twelve months ending June 30, 2025, and the stock price was recently trading around $3.80, there's a quiet battle for ownership brewing. Insiders, the people who defintely know the business best, hold a massive 43.90% of the stock, but institutional investors-firms like BlackRock Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.-only account for roughly 21.32%. So, why did institutions still buy a total of 1,400,637 shares over the last two years, representing about $8.77 million in transactions? Is that Q1 2025 revenue of US$486.3 million enough to justify the long-term bet, or are they simply chasing the operational profitability 111, Inc. achieved in the prior fiscal year? Let's dig into the 13F filings and find out who's buying, and more importantly, what they are seeing that others might be missing.

Who Invests in 111, Inc. (YI) and Why?

You want to know who is betting on 111, Inc. (YI) and what their endgame is. The quick takeaway is that this stock is a battleground between long-term insiders who own the majority of the company and institutional funds looking for a deep-value play in China's growing digital healthcare market.

The investor base for 111, Inc. is not a typical large-cap mix. It's heavily skewed toward those with an intimate knowledge of the company, which is a key signal you should not ignore. What you have here is a high level of conviction from the people running the business, plus a small but notable group of institutional players stepping in.

Key Investor Types: The Ownership Breakdown

When you look at the cap table-the breakdown of share ownership-the story of 111, Inc. is clear: it's an insider-controlled company. As of the most recent data in 2025, the company's insiders hold a massive stake, dwarfing the institutional and general public holdings. This high insider ownership is common in smaller, growth-focused companies, but it also means management's incentives are defintely aligned with long-term share price performance.

Here is the approximate ownership structure as of late 2025:

The institutional slice, while smaller, includes major global financial players. You see names like FIL Ltd, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and even BlackRock Inc. on the shareholder list, which tells you that sophisticated funds have done their due diligence. They aren't just buying a small-cap stock; they're buying a strategic position in a Chinese healthcare platform.

Investment Motivations: Betting on Profitability and Value

Investors are drawn to 111, Inc. for two primary, yet distinct, reasons: the long-term structural growth of Chinese digital healthcare and a near-term bet on operational efficiency leading to value realization. The company's core business is its tech-enabled platform, which is positioned to benefit from the ongoing shift of prescription business away from hospitals and toward retail pharmacies.

The near-term motivation is all about the bottom line. The company's management has been laser-focused on moving from a growth-at-any-cost model to a profitable one. They achieved their first-ever annual operating profit in fiscal year 2024, a major psychological milestone. For the first quarter of 2025, the company reported Non-GAAP income from operations of $0.6 million, showing that operational profitability is holding. You are buying a turnaround story that is finally proving its business model works.

• Buy the turnaround: The focus is on sustained operational profit.
• Bet on the platform: The B2B and B2C segments are leveraging China's massive healthcare shift.
• Deep value: Co-founders believe the stock trades below its Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of 111, Inc. (YI)-driven intrinsic value.

Investment Strategies: Long-Term Conviction Meets Event-Driven Trading

The strategies at play here are a mix of long-term conviction and short-term, event-driven trading. The high insider ownership and the co-founders' public statements about purchasing shares because they believe the stock is undervalued point directly to a classic, long-term value investing approach. They are holding because they see the company's trailing twelve months (TTM) revenue of approximately $1.97 Billion USD for 2025 as a solid base for future expansion that the market isn't fully pricing in.

On the other side, the presence of quantitative and trading-focused institutional investors, like Susquehanna International Group, suggests a segment of the market is employing short-term trading or special situation strategies. These funds might be trading on volatility, options, or reacting to corporate actions, like the past non-binding privatization proposals. Since 111, Inc. does not pay a dividend, the focus is purely on capital appreciation, not income. Here's the quick math: if you believe the co-founders' assessment of undervaluation, the upside is substantial, even if the path is volatile.

Institutional Ownership and Major Shareholders of 111, Inc. (YI)

You're looking at 111, Inc. (YI), a China-based tech-enabled healthcare platform, and you see a low stock price, so you want to know who the big money is backing-or abandoning. The direct takeaway is that institutional interest is relatively low, but the recent activity suggests a cautious, yet persistent, attempt by a few specialist funds to validate the company's operational turnaround, which is a key near-term opportunity.

As of late 2025, institutional investors hold approximately 21.32% of 111, Inc.'s stock. This is a small slice of the pie compared to the significant insider ownership, which stands at around 43.90%. This dynamic means the stock's float-the shares available for public trading-is quite small, and the company's direction is firmly controlled by the co-founders, Dr. Gang Yu and Mr. Junling Liu, who beneficially own 42.7% of the total issued share capital. That's a powerful concentration of control, defintely something to watch.

Top Institutional Investors and Holdings

The institutional investor landscape for 111, Inc. is characterized by smaller, specialized funds and the quantitative desks of larger banks, rather than the massive passive index funds that dominate larger-cap stocks. The total capital invested by hedge funds and large institutions in Q1 2025 was relatively modest at $626K. The top holders, based on their latest filings, are focused on the company's long-term potential in the Chinese healthcare market.

Here's a quick look at the largest institutional holders and their reported values, primarily from 2025 filings:

Recent Shifts in Ownership: A Cautious Retreat

The trend in institutional ownership has been mixed but is leaning toward a net reduction in the number of funds involved. While institutional investors have collectively bought 1,400,637 shares in the last two years-a total transaction value of approximately $8.77M-the near-term picture is more cautious. In Q1 2025, we saw a significant reduction in the total capital invested by funds, dropping by 72% to $626K from the prior quarter. This is a clear sign of risk-off sentiment.

The fund activity breaks down like this:

• Two funds opened new positions in Q1 2025, including Deuterium Capital Management LLC, which bought 10,000 shares.
• Two funds increased their existing positions.
• Five funds reduced their stakes.
• Thirteen funds closed out their positions entirely.

The fact that 13 funds exited against only two new entrants tells you that many investors are taking their chips off the table. The remaining buyers, like Deuterium, are making a high-conviction bet on the company's ability to maintain its recent operational profitability, which it has done by reporting Q2 2025 revenue of $447.51M and achieving consecutive operational profitability. The stock's low share price, which required the company to regain compliance with the Nasdaq minimum bid price requirement in February 2025, adds to the high-risk, high-reward profile.

Impact of Institutional Investors on Strategy and Stock Price

The role of institutional investors in 111, Inc. is less about driving corporate strategy and more about providing a crucial layer of market validation and liquidity. Given the low institutional ownership and the small market capitalization of only $33.71 Million USD as of November 2025, the stock is highly susceptible to price swings. Small buying or selling orders from these funds can have an outsized impact on the share price.

Here's the quick math: With such a high percentage of shares held by insiders, the public float is tiny. This low float means that when a few funds decide to buy, the price can spike quickly, and when they sell, the price can drop just as fast. The company's strategy is primarily dictated by its co-founders, whose vision is detailed in the Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of 111, Inc. (YI). Institutional investors are essentially betting that this insider-controlled strategy-focused on B2C and B2B segments in China's digital healthcare-will continue to yield operational profitability.

The key impact is on market perception. The presence of names like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and BlackRock Inc. (even in small amounts) offers a stamp of legitimacy, suggesting that the company is at least on the radar of major financial players. If the company continues its positive trend-like its Q2 2025 performance-and the institutional buying accelerates, it will act as a powerful tailwind for the stock price. But until that happens, the stock remains a classic micro-cap play, heavily influenced by insider actions and sentiment.

Key Investors and Their Impact on 111, Inc. (YI)

The investor profile for 111, Inc. (YI) is a classic two-tier structure: a dominant, highly committed insider group and a fragmented, but growing, institutional base. The direct takeaway is that the company's trajectory is overwhelmingly controlled by its co-founders, but recent institutional interest suggests a cautious validation of the firm's path to profitability.

The most influential investors are defintely the company's co-founders, Dr. Gang Yu and Mr. Junling Liu. They beneficially own a massive 42.7% of the total issued share capital. This level of insider ownership means they hold a near-majority voting block, essentially giving them control over major corporate decisions, including strategy, capital allocation, and board appointments. You can't overstate the influence of a 42.7% stake-it makes a hostile takeover practically impossible and aligns management's interests directly with long-term share performance.

Recent Moves: Insiders Buying and Institutional Validation

In a strong vote of confidence, the co-founders began purchasing company shares from their personal funds on the open market in late 2024, signaling their belief that the stock, which was trading around $3.66 per share as of November 2025, was undervalued. This is a powerful signal to the market, especially for a smaller-cap stock with a market capitalization of roughly $31.72 million. Insider buying often precedes a turnaround, and 111, Inc. did achieve its first-ever annual operating profit in fiscal year 2024, reaching an income from operations of RMB2.1 million (Chinese Yuan), a significant improvement.

Institutional investors are also starting to move, albeit cautiously. In the last two years, institutions have bought a total of 1,400,637 shares in transactions valued at approximately $8.77 million. That's a clear accumulation trend. The overall institutional ownership is around 21.32% of the stock.

• Co-founders control the narrative.
• Institutional buying validates the profit story.
• The stock is illiquid, so trades have an outsized impact.

Key Institutional Players and Their Holdings

While the ownership is fragmented among institutions, a few names stand out. These aren't the activist investors you see demanding board seats, but rather major global funds taking a position in the company's tech-enabled healthcare platform in China. Their presence suggests a belief in the long-term growth of the B2C and B2B segments, which you can read more about in 111, Inc. (YI): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money.

Here's the quick math: The institutional interest is focused on the company's maintained quarterly operational profitability in 2025. For example, Deuterium Capital Management LLC acquired a new position of 10,000 shares in the first quarter of 2025, valued at about $81,000. While small, new positions like this show analysts are starting to pay attention to the fundamental shift toward profitability.

The table below shows some of the notable institutional holders, based on filings closest to the 2025 fiscal year data, which collectively represent a significant portion of the institutional float:

What this estimate hides is the fact that many of these holdings are small relative to the funds' total assets, meaning their influence is generally passive. They are investors, not activists. Still, their collective buying power-like the total $8.77 million in institutional purchases over 24 months-provides a critical floor for the stock price and signals that sophisticated capital is taking notice of the company's improved financials.

Market Impact and Investor Sentiment

You are looking at a clear divergence in sentiment for 111, Inc. (YI): the company's insiders are buying, but Wall Street analysts and the broader market are signaling caution. The consensus among Wall Street equities research analysts is a Sell or Moderate Sell, with one analyst even setting a $0.00 price target, implying a predicted downside of -100.00% from current levels. That is a stark warning you can't ignore.

Still, the most compelling positive signal comes from the people who know the business best: the co-founders. Dr. Gang Yu and Mr. Junling Liu have been purchasing shares from their personal funds, and their collective insider ownership is substantial, controlling 42.7% of the total issued share capital. This strong alignment between management and shareholder interests is a defintely positive factor, but it has not been enough to offset the negative market trend.

Recent market reactions underscore this bearish mood. As of November 21, 2025, the stock price was approximately $3.66 per share, having fallen -12.44% over the preceding 10 days. The market capitalization for 111, Inc. sits at a relatively small $32.83 million as of November 20, 2025, reflecting the overall pressure on the stock.

Institutional Buying vs. Market Performance

Institutional investors, while not the dominant owners, have shown some recent interest, but their overall stake is modest. Institutional investors and hedge funds own about 21.32% of the stock. In the last 24 months leading up to late 2025, institutional investors have bought a total of 1,400,637 shares, representing approximately $8.77 million in transactions. This buying is a vote of confidence from players like FIL Ltd., which holds a market value of around $450K, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. with a holding valued at about $191K.

Here's the quick math on the largest institutional holders by market value in 2025:

What this estimate hides is the context of the overall price decline. Despite the institutional buying volume, the stock has struggled, declining 38.55% over the past year (from $6.69 to $4.11 between November 2024 and November 2025). You need to weigh the insider optimism and institutional accumulation against the clear price action and negative analyst outlook.

Analyst Perspectives on Future Impact

The analyst community's perspective is heavily influenced by the company's financial trajectory, even as 111, Inc. (YI) reported a major milestone: achieving a yearly profit from operations for the first time in fiscal year 2024, with income from operations reaching RMB2.1 million. This sharp turnaround from an operational loss of RMB350.1 million in 2023 is significant. Still, the market is focused on the near-term risks.

• Focus on Operational Efficiency: Analysts acknowledge the company's focus on operational efficiency, which led to a 31% decrease in total operating expenses for the full year 2024.
• Revenue Concerns: Full year 2024 net revenues were RMB14.4 billion, a slight decrease of 3.7% year-over-year, which raises questions about top-line growth in a challenging macroeconomic environment.
• Valuation Skepticism (The Discount): The overwhelmingly negative analyst rating suggests that, despite the operational profitability, there is deep skepticism about the company's ability to sustain growth or its overall valuation, especially given the low market capitalization.

The key takeaway for you is that the market is currently discounting the operational improvements, likely due to macroeconomic headwinds and the inherent risks of the Chinese digital healthcare sector. If you want a deeper dive into the company's fundamentals, you should check out Breaking Down 111, Inc. (YI) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors. Finance: Monitor the next quarterly filing for Q3 2025 to see if the operational profitability trend continues.