Neko Health, the Stockholm-founded preventive health startup co-founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek, has raised $700 million in a Series C funding round, the company announced on July 15, 2026, as it prepares to open its first clinics in the United States. The round pushes Neko's total funding past $1 billion and values the company at roughly $7 billion — nearly four times the $1.8 billion valuation it carried after its $260 million Series B just eighteen months earlier.
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by O.G. Venture Partners, with existing backers Atomico, General Catalyst and Lakestar returning alongside new investors Liberty City Ventures, Positive Sum, and BDT & MSD. A roster of celebrity and executive investors also joined, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, tennis champion Maria Sharapova, model Claudia Schiffer, restaurateur Danny Meyer, music executive Jimmy Iovine, author Tim Ferriss, footballer Thierry Henry, and musician will.i.am, according to the company's press release.
Founded in February 2023 by Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, Neko Health builds proprietary scanning hardware — branded devices including Derma-2, Echo-2 and Spectrum-2 — that combine skin imaging, cardiovascular and circulatory sensors with bloodwork to produce what the company calls "a high-definition map of your biology" in under 60 minutes. The scan, priced at £299 in the UK and 2,750 SEK in Sweden, now also includes wearable-data integration and body composition measurement, features the company added last month. More than 100,000 people in the UK and Sweden have completed a scan, and more than 350,000 have joined the waitlist or booked an appointment, the company said. Neko reports that 75% of members prepay for a follow-up scan at the end of their first visit.
"This funding is a strong vote of confidence in what we set out to do when we opened our first clinic three years ago: a completely new healthcare experience designed to keep people healthy, catch problems early and help prevent disease before it even starts," said Hjalmar Nilsonne, Neko Health co-founder and CEO, in the company's announcement. "With this round, we're taking that mission to the US for the first time, while continuing to invest in the research and technology that make prevention possible at scale."
Investors framed the round as a bet on Neko's ability to scale a vertically integrated model — one in which the company builds its own hardware, software and clinics rather than licensing existing diagnostic equipment. "Over the past eighteen months, Neko Health has demonstrated remarkable innovation and growth, attacking one of the largest markets in the world with breakthrough technology, proven consumer demand, and a clear path to global scale," said Bejul Somaia, global partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. "We believe this is one of the most important healthcare companies of our generation."
The capital will fund Neko's US expansion, starting with a New York clinic slated to open later this year, alongside continued build-out in the UK and Sweden, where the company has added locations in Manchester, Birmingham and multiple London neighborhoods. Neko says its early-detection model is already showing measurable results: among returning members previously flagged with severe or life-threatening conditions, three in four are now in good health or have the condition under control, and five of seven tracked biomarkers improved significantly between a member's first and second scan.
Why It Matters
Neko's raise lands amid a broader pivot of AI and health capital toward prevention rather than treatment. The company layers machine-learning-driven analysis atop imaging and lab data to flag risk before symptoms appear — a model increasingly echoed by health systems themselves. The company's announcement notes that NHS England's latest planning framework explicitly shifts from "sickness management to proactive population health," while new US dietary guidelines and employer health strategies reflect similar momentum toward catching chronic disease early, when it is cheaper and easier to treat.
The deal also reinforces Stockholm's rising profile as a hub for AI-adjacent consumer technology. A $700 million round — with participation from Silicon Valley figures like Zuckerberg alongside European funds Atomico and Lakestar — shows that capital for AI-driven health infrastructure is no longer concentrated solely in the US, even as American investors increasingly write the largest checks into European health-tech.
What to Watch
The near-term test is Neko's US debut. A New York clinic, its first outside Europe, will confront a fragmented American healthcare and insurance system that has swallowed other well-funded diagnostic startups. Watch for how Neko prices and positions the scan for US consumers, whether it pursues insurance reimbursement or stays cash-pay, and whether rival efforts — including Midjourney's newly announced full-body scanner project, set to open in San Francisco in 2027 — signal a wider land grab by tech companies moving into preventive diagnostics. Neko's next-generation hardware rollout, already underway in Stockholm, will also show whether the company can keep improving scan accuracy fast enough to justify its nearly $7 billion valuation.
"This funding is a strong vote of confidence in what we set out to do when we opened our first clinic three years ago: a completely new healthcare experience designed to keep people healthy, catch problems early and help prevent disease before it even starts."- Hjalmar Nilsonne, Co-Founder and CEO, Neko Health