Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s health start-up Neko Health has raised $65 million in a Series A funding round.
The funding round was led by Lakestar, with participation from Atomico and General Catalyst. Daniel Ek founded the company in 2018 in Sweden with Hjalmar Nilsonne. The company promises to help revolutionize preventative healthcare by doing full-body scans backed by AI software to help doctors detect skin conditions, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many other metabolic syndromes.
Neko Health says a full-body scan takes around 10 minutes and only cost around $280. Following the scan, an in-person consultation is scheduled where the results are explained. Neko Health says it has 35 doctors, researchers, and technicians spread across Europe. It also has a waiting list of people seeking full-body scans from its first health clinic in Stockholm.
“The Neko scan is a truly personalized experience centered around you, and it seamlessly tracks changes over time—so you do not have to,” Neko adds about its body-scanning technology.
“Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control—we believe preventative health will be key to reversing this trend,” adds Neko Health CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne. “Doctors today just don’t have enough time or resources to focus on prevention. This leads to many health problems going unnoticed until they get really serious, causing a lot of pain and putting a massive strain on the healthcare system.”
Neko Health has been close-lipped about its technology, especially given recent healthcare scandals like Theranos. Lakestar and Atomico’s Founders, Klaus Hommels and Niklas Zennström will be joining the Neko board of directors alongside Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne.
As for the Series A raise, Neko Health says it plans to use the new cash injection to accelerate its expansion plans, expanding its clinics across Europe and investing in R&D, clinical studies, and recruitment.
“Current healthcare systems and primary care processes were designed over half a century ago—and have barely changed since then,” Daniel Ek says about the company. “In addition, the cost of healthcare has increased exponentially in the past few decades, and we need to find a way to reverse this trend.”