A $700 million bet on preventive health
Neko Health, the Swedish health-tech startup co-founded by Spotify founder Daniel Ek, just closed a massive $700 million Series C funding round. The money will fuel the company’s expansion into the United States, starting with a flagship clinic in New York City.
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners. Existing backers Atomico, General Catalyst, and Lakestar also participated, alongside new investors including Liberty City Ventures, Positive Sum, and BDT & MSD. David Ofer of O.G. Venture Partners is set to join Neko’s board, pending regulatory approval.
With this latest injection, Neko’s total disclosed funding since 2023 now exceeds $1 billion. The company previously raised $65 million in a Series A in 2023 and another $260 million in January 2025.
A notable detail: the investor list includes Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, tennis legend Maria Sharapova, musician will.i.am, and former footballer Thierry Henry. Earlier individual investors include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and actor Zoë Saldaña.
What happens inside a Neko Health scan?
Neko’s clinics offer a 60-minute, non-invasive, radiation-free health assessment. The service combines full-body imaging, blood tests, custom-built sensors, and artificial intelligence — all reviewed by a clinician during the same visit.
The scan includes an electrocardiogram, arterial measurements, body-composition analysis, and more than 2,000 high-resolution images that map a customer’s skin. Blood samples are processed on-site, so results are ready before the patient leaves. A doctor or nurse discusses findings in person.
The company screens for potential signs of skin cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and stroke risk factors. Many of these measurements — blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose — are available through standard healthcare. Neko’s pitch is convenience: one appointment, proprietary imaging, automated data collection, and immediate results.
But the company’s public materials don’t include a comparative study showing whether this bundled approach actually improves clinical outcomes or saves money versus established preventive care pathways.
US expansion: New York first, more cities to come
Neko plans to open clinics in New York and other US cities, though it hasn’t named specific additional locations or provided a detailed timeline. A waitlist for the New York clinic is already live on its website. Pricing for US scans hasn’t been announced.
Currently, the company operates eight clinics across the UK and Sweden: two in Stockholm, one each in Manchester and Birmingham, and four in London (Marylebone, Spitalfields, Covent Garden, and Victoria). In the UK, a scan costs £299 (about $400); in Sweden, it’s 2,750 Swedish kronor (roughly $285).
Since launching in 2023, Neko says it has completed 100,000 scans. More than 350,000 people have registered or joined waitlists. The company reports that 75% of customers book and prepay for a second scan at the end of their first appointment — a strong retention signal.
That repeat-booking model lets clinicians compare measurements and skin images over time. But public information doesn’t establish whether annual screening is the right interval for every age or risk group.
Regulatory clearance and the US healthcare puzzle
Two of Neko’s internally developed devices have received FDA 510(k) clearance — Derma-2 as an adjunctive telethermographic system, and Spectrum-2 as a tissue-saturation oximeter for cardiovascular measurements. These clearances apply to the specific devices and their intended uses, not to the complete Neko Health Scan as a single FDA-approved screening service.
The company positions its US clinics as preventive health and wellness providers, not full-service medical practices. Its privacy notice explicitly advises customers to continue seeing their existing doctors for diagnoses and treatment, including for conditions flagged during a Neko scan.
Specialist clinicians — dermatologists and cardiologists — review findings that need further examination. Follow-up appointments, referral letters, and introductions to outside specialists are included when recommended. But Neko’s US clinics don’t currently participate in health insurance plans, and the company says most services aren’t covered by a payer. Customers will pay out of pocket for the initial assessment.
Neko hasn’t disclosed what customers might pay for diagnostic tests or treatment delivered by external providers, nor whether employers or insurers will subsidize access.
What about the evidence?
Publicly available information doesn’t include a completed peer-reviewed study validating the full screening service. A trial registered on ClinicalTrials.gov is evaluating Neko’s multimodal skin-imaging technology for screening and diagnostic-support applications, including skin cancer and Raynaud’s phenomenon. But that trial is still ongoing.
Neko’s materials don’t disclose how often its scans produce false-positive findings, how many customers undergo additional procedures, or how many flagged abnormalities turn out to be clinically unimportant. The FDA clearances for individual devices don’t establish the performance of every algorithm used to combine or interpret the resulting data.
The company did share health-outcome data from 1,469 customers who completed a second scan about a year after their first. The group recorded improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar, while body weight stayed broadly stable. But Neko itself says this wasn’t a scientific study — there was no control group. Customers could have started treatment or changed their behavior between appointments, so the figures don’t prove the scans caused the improvements.
CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne said part of the new capital will fund further research and development. Neko recently added body-composition measurements and clinician reviews of wearable-device data. It also introduced updated versions of its Derma, Echo, and Spectrum medical devices, which capture more health data and automate more of the scanning process.
Neko didn’t disclose its valuation after this round. The Financial Times, citing unnamed sources, pegged it at around $7 billion.
For a deeper look at how AI is reshaping diagnostics, check out our coverage of NHS AI blood test reducing invasive womb cancer checks. And if you’re interested in the broader trend of preventive health screening technology, we’ve got you covered.
