Spotify billionaire’s body scan startup has come to America — SkimNews
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- Neko Health, co-founded in Sweden by Spotify's David Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, has raised nearly $1 billion total and just opened in New York as its first US market.
- The company says its global waitlist now tops 300,000 people ahead of the US launch.
- Neko Health's one-hour scan costs $500 out of pocket, is not covered by insurance, but qualifies as an eligible Health Savings Account expense; it screens for issues in blood, skin, and metabolism.
- Farooq Abbasi, a Preface Ventures investor who has been scanned twice, said the scan's scope has expanded sharply — from 15 biomarkers on his first visit to 55 on his most recent — crediting advances in computer vision.
- Abbasi argued preventative care utilization is low in the US specifically because of cost concerns, positioning Neko's premium offering as a workaround to a broken insurance-driven system.
- Neko Health still faces scaling and regulatory approval work in the US, though Abbasi is optimistic more venture capital will flow into the preventative space.
Why it matters: Neko enters the US with 300,000 people already on its global waitlist and nearly $1 billion in funding, but its $500 cash-pay model depends on Americans paying out of pocket for a service their insurance won't cover. The bet is that enough consumers will bypass the traditional system to make a premium preventative scan viable at scale outside Sweden.
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