Neko Health valued at $7bn after $700m raise for US expansion
Daniel Ek’s Neko Health has secured $700m to bring its preventative body-scanning clinics to New York, proving that European consumers will pay out of pocket for early disease detection in a massive validation of the longevity market.
Neko Health, the medical scanning startup co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, has raised $700m in a Series C round that values the company at nearly $7bn. The funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners, will finance the company’s first US clinics, starting with New York later this year.
The valuation, roughly four times what the company was worth in January 2025, underscores a notable shift in European consumer behaviour. “We’ve gone into markets where health care is free, and hundreds of thousands of people line up in a queue” to pay for a scan, Daniel Ek told the New York Times. “That also captures the imagination.”
Neko operates private clinics built around a 60-minute full-body scan using a proprietary sensor pod to capture millions of data points on the skin, heart, and circulation. Combined with a blood test and a same-day doctor consultation, the service screens for early signs of skin cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. By designing its own hardware and software, Neko argues it can iterate faster than competitors reliant on off-the-shelf medical equipment.
The strategy is attracting significant demand. More than 100,000 people have completed a scan, with another 350,000 registered or on waiting lists across eight clinics in Sweden and the UK. Neko claims that three in four returning members whose scans flagged a serious condition now have it under control. A scan costs £299 in the UK, with US pricing yet to be announced.
Neko is part of a wider surge of capital flowing into preventative healthcare, a sector attracting funding from insurers like Alan to AI-driven diagnostic tools. The company will face established US rivals like Prenuvo and Ezra as it enters New York. However, some physicians remain sceptical, questioning whether whole-body scans generate enough genuine detections to justify the expense and potential false alarms.
Despite the medical debate, the financial backing is formidable. The investor roster includes Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Maria Sharapova, will.i.am, Thierry Henry, Jimmy Iovine, and Tim Ferriss. “With this round, we’re taking that mission to the US for the first time,” said co-founder and chief executive Hjalmar Nilsonne. Lightspeed’s Bejul Somaia called Neko “one of the most important healthcare companies of our generation.”
