Neko Health, a Swedish preventative healthcare technology startup co-founded by Spotify founder Daniel Ek, has secured $260 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (which invested in Stability AI and Whatnot), with participation from General Catalyst, O.G. Venture Partners, Rosello, Lakestar and Atomico.
As part of this funding round, BejulSomaia, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners will join the Board of Directors at Neko Health.
The investment will help accelerate the company’s plans for expansion within Europe and the US and continued investment in R&D for new breakthrough health diagnostics.
How was Neko Health born?
Neko Health’s story began in 2018 when Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek teamed up with entrepreneur Hjalmar Nilsonne. Operating in stealth mode, the startup received €30 million from Ek, partly through his investment arm, Prima Materia. Ek’s motivation stemmed from his frustration with the inefficiency of healthcare.
Even while challenging tech giants with Spotify, he explored healthtech by studying medical journals and tracking his own health with devices like Fitbit and Apple Watch. After Spotify’s IPO in 2018, Ek’s focus on healthcare solidified. Partnering with Nilsonne, who shared his vision for disruption, they created Neko Health to prioritise disease prevention and longevity. Their innovation, a diagnostic tool for streamlined annual checkups, embodies their mission to revolutionise healthcare and extend human life.
Full-body scans in minutes
The company’s vision is to create a healthcare system that can help people stay healthy, through preventative measures and early detection. Neko Health’s full-body scanning system designed for broad and non-invasive health data collection. By leveraging over seventy sensors to collect fifty million data points, the company aims to provide quicker, more convenient, and affordable health assessments.
The unique, non-invasive Neko Health Scan costs £299 and maps millions of health data points on the body, both inside and out, in just a few minutes. It checks moles and marks across the body, symptoms of metabolic syndrome and risk factors for stroke and heart attack, along with blood sugar levels to assess pre-diabetes risk. Additionally, it checks for skin cancer and blood abnormalities. Immediately following the scan, members receive full results as part of a doctor-led consultation. The whole experience is complete in just under an hour.
It has completed 10,000 scans across Stockholm and London. On average, 80% of members book and prepay a scan for the following year at the end of their appointment. Demand remains high, with the global waiting list totalling more than 100,000. In response, the company is building out capacity with further locations and new regions.
Since launch, Neko Health has been referenced by a number of independent experts who believe the scans can play a part in this future. The Neko Body Scan is currently available in London and Stockholm, with plans for further expansion in the coming months.
Hjalmar Nilsonne, CEO and Co-Founder of Neko Health, said “We’re at the beginning of a big shift of the healthcare market, from reactive to proactive, driven both by technological advancements and growing consumer demand. This round of financing accelerates Neko’s global expansion of locations to include the US, as well as investments in breakthrough R&D. In the coming years Neko will continue to bring incredible innovations to the market to find and prevent disease before it has a chance to develop.”
Dr Jack Kreindler, Founder of WellFounded and Medical Director of CHHP (Centre for Health and Human Performance), said “In the last two decades, I’ve never seen such a seismic shift in attitudes to personal healthcare, prevention and screening as now. An ever increasing number of my clients have an overarching feeling of “wanting to do more for themselves”,in particular when it comes to screening and preventive health. When I first heard about Neko Health and started sending my clients there, I knew they’d hit the nail on the head from an experience and value for money perspective. Without any bias or incentive, I see that Neko is truly setting new ground – at just the right time to harness a changing self-directed healthcare revolution.”
Dr Vishal Gulati, MD, independent health expert, HealthTech investor, founder and managing partner, Recode Ventures, added “The greatest challenge in modern healthcare isn’t treating the sick – it’s engaging the healthy. People don’t want to be patients; they want to be participants in their own wellbeing journey. The only way forward is to reimagine healthcare experiences that align with their aspirations of staying well, like Neko Health is doing. Having experienced the Neko Health scan for myself, I’m even more convinced of the need to shift from a system that waits for sickness to one that empowers wellness through experiences like this.”
The post From Spotify to fast, affordable full-body scanning in minutes: Daniel Ek’s new healthtech startup attracts $260M funding appeared first on Tech Funding News.