Dacadoo


dacadoo is a Zurich-based technology company that combines mobile technologies, social networking, gamification, Artificial Inteligence and big data analytics with the aim of helping users improve their health and wellbeing.

History and background

dacadoo is based in Zurich, Switzerland and was founded as QUENTIQ AG in 2010 with client service offices in Boston, Odense, Sydney, Shanghai and Tokyo. The company is privately funded.
dacadoo’s first product, the Digital Health Engagement platform, went live in December 2011. Since then, they have released several updates and major improvements and currently runs on version 3.10 in over 15 languages across the world.
The company focuses exclusively on a B2B2C go-to-market approach and has signed agreements with customers who launched the dacadoo platform in an own branded version to their end users in various countries.
The company presupposes its health platform execution on the premise that sedentary lifestyles have increased the proportion of people who are overweight, have diabetes or suffer heart failure in our society thus pressuring further the already stressed healthcare budgets of most developed countries. One such study is the clinical data published in the Edward R. Laskowski, M.D., Mayo Clinic, 2018 publication: «An analysis of 13 studies of sitting time and activity levels found that those who sat for more than eight hours a day with no physical activity had a risk of dying similar to the risks of dying posed by obesity and smoking.»With these type of studies as their reference dacadoo has been, according to their website and press releases, developing a so-called lifestyle navigation platform that calculates a person's Health Score.
The score, a number from 0 to 1000, is calculated based on over 300 million person-years of clinical data and represents a person's health status from poor to excellent. It aims to represent a directional relative indicator of a user's current health and wellbeing status in real-time. The dacadoo health score is based on three pillars:
According to their statement, many of the company's initiatives aim to focus on active health promotion and healthier lifestyle to tackle the problems before they become chronic – in this instance referencing a report on global life sciences published by Greg Reh in 2020 which recognizes that changing behavioral patterns represented the single biggest opportunity to improve an individual's health outcome.
The company's business model is based on the premise that the combination of smartphone technology, social networking, motivation techniques from the gaming industry, Artificial Intelligence, big data analytics and a reward system, have the power to facilitate lifestyle behavior change in individuals. As a result, the company trademarked the dacadoo Health Score Platform based on these principles. The company has since launch issued a disclaimer that the so-called dacadoo Health Score is not a medical diagnostic tool but a lifestyle product and therefore does not substitute the diagnosis of a medical professional.

Products and Functionality

dacadoo offers a range of products within their value proposition, including:
The dacadoo Digital Health engagement platform
The digital and mobile health & wellbeing platform can be accessed by web browser or via the native mobile apps for iPhone and Android smartphones. The platform calculates a real-time Health Score for each user based on 3 key areas: Lifestyle, Body, and Mind, and motivates users through automated lifestyle coaching, gamification, social features and a reward system.
This product can be fully white labelled, including client’s branding and sub-branding.
The platform is device and application agnostic and supports third party devices and apps from companies such as:
In addition to offer the connection to the various tracking devices and apps, dacadoo offers an own tracker that can track more than 115 different indoor and outdoor fitness activities.
The dacadoo Risk Engine
The dacadoo risk-based engine uses models backed by clinical research and provides accurate outputs to be used in accelerated underwriting and dynamic pricing or to calculate a Health Score.
The dacadoo API
Allows to build customized applications using dacadoo's award-winning technology as a foundation. It provides full access to dacadoo’s technology components via a RESTful Application Programming Interface, the dacadoo API.
Customers have the possibility of using the API to offer a different user experience and user interface to dacadoo’s white label product.
dacadoo GO
This is an entry-level walking campaigns platform, which can also be white labelled.
It’s best described as a customizable geolocation-based walking app that transforms the mundane activity of walking into an interactive game.

Awards and nominations

The following is a list of awards and nominations dacadoo has received.
YearAwardCategoryResult
2020MongoDBInnovator of the Year
Data for Good		Won
Won
2020Global Digital Health Award List by the Journel of mHealth100 innovation leaders in HealthTechWon
201822nd Asia Industry AwardsInsurTech of the YearNominated
2018GSMA Asia Mobile AwardsBest Mobile App for BusinessNominated
2018Europe's Top 100 Digital Pioneers by Financial Times, Google and the EUDigital PioneerWon
2017Feedspot.Top 100 Healthy Lifestyle BlogWon
2016Business Intelligence GroupBIG InnovationWon
2016HITS Award by MerckBeWell ChallengesWon
2016Red Herring Global Top 100 AwardTop 100Won
2016Frost & Sullivan Global Wellness Analytics Visionary Innovation Leadership AwardLeadershipWon
2015Digital Innovation in Healthcare Conference of Munich NetworkDigital HealthNominated
2015TiECon 2015Top 50 startupsWon
2015EU SME eHealth Competition 2015ChampionsNominated
2014Best of Swiss App AwardLifestyleNominated
2014Red Herring Top 100 Europe AwardWon
2014Best of Swiss Web AwardsInnovationWon
2013Health Media Award 2013Won
2013Swiss ICT AwardPublic AwardWon
2012Health Media Award 2012″International Communication
International Cooperation		Won
Won
2012Best of Swiss Web AwardsTechnologyNominated
2012Swiss App AwardsNominated

Media coverage

The company has received media coverage in print, online, TV and radio all over the world. Following a list of the most prominent media coverage per language.
LanguageMedia Coverage
EnglishCoverager, Community of Insurance, Bloomberg news, the Journal of mHealth, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. Also published in mHealthNews, mHealthSpot, SeekingAlpha, theinquirer, mobihealthnews, finance.yahoo.com, and Salus Digital, Center for Data Innovation
GermanBlick, SonntagsBlick magazine, SonntagsZeitung weekly newspaper, and 20 Minuten, und BILANZ Magazine, and NZZ am Sonntag.Punkt4Info, Die Welt, Internet World Business, heise online, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Die Tageszeitung,
Swiss television's. "cash TV" and "10vor10" and "Einstein". Also covered by the DRS 2 the second Swiss German radio station from Schweizer Radio DRS
German TV ZDFinfo, and on German public TV Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen Das Erste,
PortugueseSaber Viver, Brazil's EXAME magazine, and Impressão Digital.
ItalianInsurZine
DanishDagbladet Børsen and Berlingske Tidende.
FrenchLe TempsFrench radio in Switzerland RTS.
JapaneseNikkei, Hokennews, Shinnihon