Pacer by Mandian Life: The Low-Key Chinese Developer Behind a Global Top 10 Health App Files for IPO

Interviewing Liu Yue, founder of Beijing Mandian Life Technology Co., Ltd., was an intriguing experience. From the very beginning, our roles seemed to reverse: he became the interviewer, while I unexpectedly found myself in the interviewee’s seat. What intrigued him most was how VCBeat had discovered his company.

Indeed, a search engine yields scant information about “Slow Living” or their app named “Dongdong.” Liu Yue also stated on his personal Weibo account that he focuses more on product development than on social engagement. Yet it is precisely this low-profile team that has created “Pacer,” a mobile health application ranked among the top 5 in China, the top 10 in North America, and even number 2 in the United Kingdom.

Current Rankings of “Dongdong Pacer” in the Apple Store in China and North AmericaIt’s actually quite simple.When discussing the original intention behind starting the business, Liu Yue told VCBeat that it really came down to two simple words: “health.” He is deeply concerned about his own health and that of his family, and he also hopes to extend this care to the health of many ordinary people. Their underlying premise is equally straightforward: they hope to inspire people to take action for their own health, which is one of the reasons why their app is named “Dongdong” (Move Move).

Liu Yue once worked at Microsoft in the United States before returning to China. Joking that he had reached the age where health should become a priority, Liu teamed up with Li Lei, a former Microsoft engineer; Michael Caldwell, a former manager at Groupon China; and later joiner Xu Zheng, former Design Director at iQIYI, to jointly establish the “Dongdong Pacer” project team.

The mobile health app developed by the “Dongdong Pacer” team is named “Dongdong” in China and “Pacer” in North America. This app records your all-day activity data, including walking and running, and allows you to manually input metrics such as weight and blood pressure. Dongdong supports low-power background operation even when offline, enabling it to track your daily steps. It generates corresponding exercise curves based on time and calculated calorie expenditure, helping you analyze your physical activity. Additionally, you can share experiences and insights with others through the app’s group and forum features, connecting with individuals who share similar fitness goals.

Although there are numerous mobile health apps currently available, Liu Yue emphasizes that, unlike apps such as Nike+ which pursue the goal of “faster, higher, stronger,” Dongdong’s target audience should be the general public concerned about their health. This includes especially those with suboptimal health status who need to regulate their lifestyle pace, as well as patients with chronic diseases, individuals with obesity, the elderly, and pregnant women. Exercise for these groups should center on “slowness,” involving “gentle exercises” such as walking and jogging, rather than intense, long-distance running activities like marathons. Liu Yue also noted that the user base of their app is definitely older than that of Nike+, Codoon, and similar platforms.

Regarding the social module of “Dongdong,” Liu Yue believes that individual health requires greater support and care from family members and close friends. Therefore, Dongdong’s social module is designed primarily as an “acquaintance-based social network.” Users can log in directly using their social media accounts, such as WeChat or QQ, and add their WeChat contacts to groups for mutual encouragement. Additionally, Dongdong incorporates an anonymous forum feature, enabling users to connect with like-minded individuals or those facing similar health challenges, thereby facilitating communication among them. Liu Yue noted that Dongdong originally included a highly active section called “Emotional Night Talk,” but the team ultimately decided to remove it, as he aims to ensure that the app serves users who are genuinely motivated to address their health issues.

Not So SimpleIn 2014, internet healthcare was undoubtedly a hot sector both domestically and internationally. According to statistics from the VCBeat Internet Healthcare Research Institute’s investment and financing database, there were 103 financing deals in China’s internet healthcare industry throughout 2014, with disclosed funding exceeding $1.4 billion. In the United States, this figure reached $4.1 billion, representing a 125% increase from 2013 and even surpassing the total of the previous three years combined.

Amid such a fervent industry climate, Liu Yue remained remarkably composed. While he is highly optimistic about the mobile health market, he believes that the current investment frenzy across the sector warrants rational analysis.

Liu Yue believes that the current boom in the internet healthcare market is primarily confined to the “existing stock” market. In other words, the ongoing transformation in the healthcare industry is merely at the stage of digitizing existing medical resources, such as optimizing appointment scheduling and medication purchases through O2O (Online-to-Offline) models. The fundamental reality that physicians are the core and scarce resource within the healthcare system remains unchanged. Current reforms are only seeking to better utilize physicians’ time and optimize the allocation of medical personnel, without actually tapping into the “incremental” market. In short, the development of health management for the general population, aided by mobile smart devices and big data analytics, is still far from sufficient.

What Liu Yue’s team truly aims to target is precisely this incremental market. They seek to enter the health management sector from the perspective of “gentle exercise,” helping “ordinary people” who wish to improve their health status.

Although highly confident in the prospects of mobile health management, the release of Apple’s HealthKit further validated Liu Yue’s initial entrepreneurial insight: that a product serving as a central operating system would inevitably emerge in the market, and their role would be to excel in one critical component—health data analytics. It was precisely this insight that led to “Pacer” being featured as a case study to promote HealthKit during the Keynote address at the WWDC conference in June 2014. For a Chinese team, such recognition is exceedingly rare.

However, Liu Yue believes that due to various constraints, the consumerization of medical devices is still in its infancy even in the United States. The current market remains at the stage of educating users to manage their health via mobile devices, and the golden age of mobile health management has not yet truly arrived.

Liu Yue candidly admitted that when he first founded the company, many people were skeptical of their concept. However, the impressive track record of “Dongdong” has strongly validated its value. Yet Liu’s ambitions extend beyond “Dongdong.” He hopes that as the market matures and user habits gradually take shape, the company will emerge as the “Number One” player in mobile health management, serving as a health steward for the “average person.”

Liu Yue stated that this is no easy task, but he remains confident, as this embodies the very purpose and joy of entrepreneurship. VCBeat also looks forward to it with great anticipation.

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