People Partner Lead

Neko Health's $700M US launch: is daniel Ek's body scan worth it. Tl;dr. * Neko Health has officially launched in the US after a massive $700 million raise, pushing its valuation past $4 billion and funding flagship clinics in New York and the Bay Area. * For $1,095, members get a 60-minute, AI-powered full-body scan that maps skin, heart, metabolism and blood biomarkers, with results delivered in-app in under an hour. * Investors are betting preventative care is the next trillion-dollar category, but Neko faces stiff competition from Function Health's $499 lab-first model and Prenuvo-style MRI scanners, plus questions about FDA clearance and real clinical value. The Spotify playbook, but for your body. Daniel Ek conquered music with Spotify. Now he wants to conquer healthcare. Neko Health, the Swedish preventative health startup Ek co-founded with Hjalmar Nilsonne in 2018, has officially arrived in America. The company confirmed this month it has closed a $700 million Series C to scale across the US, opening its first American flagship in Manhattan's SoHo, with San Francisco and Boston slated for early 2027. It's one of the largest health-tech raises of the year, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Atomico, General Catalyst, and Ek's own family office. The round values Neko at over $4 billion, making it Europe's most valuable longevity startup by far. The pitch is simple and seductive: for people tired of 7-minute doctor visits and reactive sick-care, Neko offers a fast, futuristic, full-body checkup that finds problems before symptoms appear. Americans are clearly curious. Neko says more than 200,000 people joined its US waitlist before launch, echoing the frenzy it saw in Stockholm and London where appointments sold out for months. How Neko's body scan actually works. Walk into Neko's SoHo clinic and it doesn't feel like a doctor's office. It feels like an Apple Store crossed with a spaceship. The core experience is a 60-minute, non-invasive scan in what Neko calls the Body Pod. Here's the breakdown: First, a high-resolution 3D body mapping system takes thousands of images of your skin, tracking every mole, freckle, and lesion down to 0.2mm. AI flags changes that could signal melanoma or other skin conditions. Second, you lie back for cardiovascular screening. Neko uses non-contact sensors, blood pressure mapping, ECG, and ultrasound-like blood flow measurements to assess arterial stiffness, heart function, and circulation - key early markers for stroke and heart disease. Third is the blood draw. Unlike a standard annual physical that tests 10-15 markers, Neko runs 100+ biomarkers covering cholesterol, blood sugar, inflammation, kidney and liver function, thyroid, and metabolic syndrome risk. All of that data is fused by Neko's AI engine and reviewed by a licensed physician on-site. Within an hour, your results pop up in the Neko app with a Health Score, trend lines, and a face-to-face consultation to go over red flags. No gowns in cold hallways. No waiting three weeks for lab results. No MRI tube. In the US, the full scan costs $1,095 out-of-pocket, with annual re-scans at $695 for members. Insurance doesn't cover it - at least not yet. Neko vs. Function Health vs. Prenuvo and the Midjourney crowd. Neko isn't entering an empty market. Longevity is suddenly Silicon Valley's hottest battleground. Function Health, co-founded by Levels founder Sam Corcos and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, is Neko's closest rival. At $499 per year, Function skips the fancy clinic and goes lab-first: 160+ blood tests, twice a year, with insights from top doctors including Mark Hyman. It's cheaper and already has 300,000+ paying members in the US, but there's no in-person 3D body scan or cardiac imaging. On the high end is Prenuvo, the $2,500 whole-body MRI darling of Kim Kardashian and Ashton Kutcher. Prenuvo gives you a stunningly detailed look inside - tumors, cysts, spine and brain anomalies - in a 60-minute MRI. It's powerful, but slow, expensive, and prone to incidental findings that cause anxiety. Neko argues its approach is faster, more affordable, and better for yearly tracking. Then there's the wild card: the AI-imaging wave coming from Midjourney circles. Midjourney founder David Holz has been teasing a separate AI health-scanning research project focused on low-cost, vision-model diagnostics, and a host of startups inspired by that work are promising iPhone-based skin and posture scans for under $100. They're nowhere near Neko's clinical depth, but they show where the tech is headed - preventative screening as cheap and ubiquitous as a selfie. In short: Function wins on price and labs, Prenuvo wins on deep imaging, Neko is trying to win on experience - a one-stop, design-forward middle ground. Why Investors just bet $700 million on longevity. Why would VCs pour $700 million into physical clinics, one of the hardest businesses to scale? Three reasons. One, the economics of prevention are flipping. Chronic disease costs the US $4.5 trillion a year. Employers and wealthy consumers will happily pay $1,000 a year if it catches diabetes, heart disease, or skin cancer early. Neko already claims profitability per clinic in Sweden, with 80% of members rebooking. Two, AI finally makes it scalable. Neko says its models, trained on millions of scans from Stockholm, London, and now New York, cut doctor review time by 70%. That means one physician can supervise far more patients than in traditional primary care. Three, data is the moat. Every scan makes Neko's risk-prediction engine smarter. Investors aren't just buying clinic revenue - they're buying what could become the largest private dataset of preventative human health in the world. Think Spotify's Wrapped, but for your arteries. Lightspeed partner Bejul Somaia called it "the first consumer health brand with Apple-level love and pharma-level rigor." Is it worth it? What doctors say. So, should you book? Early reviews from London and Stockholm are glowing on experience - 4.8 stars, spotless clinics, zero waiting. Users love seeing their own vascular age, skin map, and metabolic trends visualized beautifully. Doctors are more split. Supporters say Neko is exactly what modern medicine is missing: accessible baseline data, early detection, and patient empowerment. Catching high blood pressure at 32 or pre-diabetes at 38 can add a decade to your life. Skeptics warn of three issues. First, Neko's US offering is not FDA-cleared as a diagnostic device - it operates as a wellness screening service with physician oversight, which limits what it can officially claim to detect. Second, more data isn't always better. Broad biomarker testing can trigger false positives, unnecessary follow-ups, and anxiety. Third, $1,095 still prices out most Americans who need preventative care most. Neko counters that it refers less than 8% of members for urgent follow-up, partners with local health systems for referrals, and publishes its clinical validation studies openly. What's next for Neko in America. The $700 million won't sit still. Neko says 70% will go to US expansion: 10-15 clinics in major metros by 2028, a US-based AI research lab, and hiring 200+ physicians, nurses, and engineers. Longer term, Ek has hinted at at-home sensors, continuous glucose and blood pressure integration, and employer partnerships that could drop the price below $500. Whether Neko becomes the Spotify of healthcare or another luxury wellness fad for the worried well depends on one thing: can it prove its scans actually make people live longer, healthier lives - not just feel cooler about their health? For now, America's longevity gold rush has a sleek new Scandinavian flagship. And a 200,000-person waitlist suggests plenty of people are willing to pay to find out. AndroGuider Team Articles written by the AndroGuider team. Androguider try to make them thorough and informational while being easy to read.

'Built in the UK': Neko Health opens in New York after $700m raise. Ground-breaking firm co-founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek has completed more than 100,000 60-minute scans - capturing millions of data points A ground-breaking HealthTech co-founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek which built its model in the UK has launched in New York. Ek founded Neko Health with Hjalmar Nilsonne to redefine how people understand and act on their health. This summer it raised $700 million in Series C funding. At the heart of Neko's offering is the Neko Health Scan - a 60-minute, comprehensive, non-invasive and radiation-free health assessment that captures millions of health data points. Neko has opened its first US clinic in SoHo, New York - the first step in a US roll-out, with more New York sites and Miami, Washington, DC and San Francisco also planned. The firm said there was a New York waitlist of more than 25,000 before opening day. More than 350,000 people have joined the waitlist or registered for a Neko Health Scan, and more than 100,000 in the UK and Sweden have already experienced one. The firm has added clinics in Manchester and Birmingham, as well as multiple locations in London. Priced at £299 in the UK and 2,750 SEK in Sweden, the scan uses proprietary sensors alongside blood analysis to assess skin health, including moles and marks; biomarkers to identify pre-diabetes risk; blood abnormalities; and risk factors linked to metabolic syndrome, stroke and heart attack. Results are delivered on-site within minutes and discussed during an in-person consultation with a medical professional, providing members with personalised and actionable health findings. In addition, body composition measures, captured in seconds during the scan, and clinician review of wearable data, is now live across all clinics - giving members an even more detailed picture of their health both in the moment and between visits. All Neko Health's technology has been built in-house, including hardware, software and consumer experience. Nilsonne previously co-founded and served as CEO of Watty, an energy data company which was acquired by Assa Abloy. He was raised in a family of doctors. As for the US, Neko says six in 10 American adults live with a chronic disease, and four in ten live with two or more. Roughly 90% of national health spending goes toward people managing chronic and mental health conditions. And yet, up to 80% of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable. "Hjalmar and I have talked about bringing Neko to America since the earliest days of the company because if you want to change healthcare at scale, the US has to be part of that ambition," said Ek. "New York is the starting point. New Yorkers place an incredible value on their time and have exceptionally high expectations for how they spend it. This city doesn't settle for good enough, and neither do we." In New York, Neko refers members who need additional care to vetted physicians and healthcare systems, including General Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), Schweiger Dermatology, and Mount Sinai Health System. "There's no better time than now to bring Neko Health to America," said CEO Nilsonne. "We've scanned more than 100,000 people across Sweden and the UK, and what we've seen is unmistakable: when people can see their health clearly and know what to do about it, they get healthier."

Neko Health opens its doors in NEW YORK, bringing the most valuable hour in healthcare to America. Science · SEP 24, 2026 PR Newswire Booking begins today at Neko's first U.S. clinic in SoHo, where breakthrough technology and prevention-focused clinicians give members the bigger picture o... Booking begins today at Neko's first U.S. clinic in SoHo, where breakthrough technology and prevention-focused clinicians give members the bigger picture of their health in a single hour NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Today marks the opening day for Neko Health in the United States, after more than 25,000 New Yorkers joined the waitlist ahead of launch. Their clinic at 300 Lafayette Street in SoHo - the first of many planned across NYC and across the country - brings Neko's Scandinavian high-tech and high-touch experience to life. Across Sweden and the UK, more than 100,000 members have already experienced the Neko Health Scan. At the end of their first appointment, 75% of members book and prepay for their next scan, and after their second appointment, 80% of members book their third scan. The Neko Health Scan is the most valuable hour you can spend on your health. Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek (Spotify) founded Neko Health to deliver preventive healthcare at scale, shifting the focus from treating disease after it develops to helping people understand and act on their health earlier. Neko engineered its technology and clinical experience entirely from the ground up. In one hour, you'll have a connected view of your skin, heart, blood, and metabolic health, all explained by a clinician before you leave. All of this for $499. The stakes are real: six in ten American adults live with a chronic disease, and four in ten live with two or more,[1] and roughly 90% of national health spending goes toward people managing chronic and mental health conditions.[1] And yet, up to 80% of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable.[2] "Hjalmar and I have talked about bringing Neko to America since the earliest days of the company because if you want to change healthcare at scale, the U.S. has to be part of that ambition," said Daniel Ek, Co-Founder of Neko Health. "New York is the starting point. New Yorkers place an incredible value on their time and have exceptionally high expectations for how they spend it. This city doesn't settle for good enough, and neither do we." The 60-minute, radiation-free visit combines the best of human, hardware, and health intelligence: a 360-degree skin exam with 6,000 images captured via a combination of cameras in the visual spectrum as well as thermal cameras, a cardiovascular assessment, detailed body composition analysis, on-site blood testing focused on 50+ essential biomarkers, and unrushed time with a clinician to walk through results and build a plan of action. The Neko Health Scan takes roughly 30 minutes, followed by a further 30 minutes with a clinician. Together, this creates a detailed baseline that can be tracked over time and helps surface early signals before symptoms appear, often while there's still time to act. After the appointment, members can access their results anytime through the Neko Health app on iOS and Android, which stores scan history, tracks changes over time, and syncs daily data from wearables like Oura or Whoop via Apple Health. The company designed and developed its own medical devices, hardware, software and systems to capture, analyze and present health data within a single experience. This allows Neko to ensure high quality, all while rapidly improving the technology, experience, and outcomes for members. "There's no better time than now to bring Neko Health to America," said Hjalmar Nilsonne, CEO and Co-Founder of Neko Health. "We've scanned more than 100,000 people across Sweden and the UK, and what we've seen is unmistakable: when people can see their health clearly and know what to do about it, they get healthier." In New York, Neko refers members who need additional care to vetted physicians and healthcare systems, including General Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), Schweiger Dermatology, and Mount Sinai Health System. This allows members to be connected quickly with high-quality, trusted clinicians when follow-up is needed, so they can move forward with confidence in the continuity of their care. Members can also be referred to their own clinicians, if they prefer. Neko also accepts HSA and FSA payment, making the experience more accessible to New Yorkers already setting aside pre-tax dollars for their health. The New York opening follows Neko Health's $700 million Series C, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by O.G. Venture Partners, with participation from Maria Sharapova, Zoe Saldaña, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Danny Meyer, Claudia Schiffer and Sir Matthew Vaughn, Thierry Henry, Tim Ferriss and will.i.am. New York marks the first step in Neko Health's U.S. expansion. Additional New York locations and a Miami clinic are expected to follow, with Washington, D.C. and San Francisco also planned. Press kit link for imagery. About Neko Health Neko Health is a health technology company that opened its first clinic in Stockholm in 2023, founded by Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne. Neko designs and engineers its own hardware, software, and clinical protocols in-house, powering a next-generation health scan delivered across clinics in Sweden, the UK, and now the United States. SOURCE Neko Health Published by News Desk · WeeklyReviewer The WeeklyReviewer news desk monitors breaking developments around the clock - sourcing, verifying, and publishing real-time industry news across business, technology, politics, science, sports, and world affairs. Every story that comes through the Live Wire is reviewed for accuracy before publication, keeping our readers ahead of the curve without the noise.