Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is now the proud co-founder of two billion-dollar-plus companies after his body scanning startup, Neko Health, reached unicorn status in its latest fundraising round.
The Swedish health tech group raised $260 million (£211 million) in a Series B funding round that values the company, which focuses on preventative healthcare treatment, at $1.7 billion (£1.4 billion).
Neko is a mass-market health tech startup, with its Neko Health Check body scan, marketed at £299 in the U.K., tagged as a “preventative health check for your future self.”
The scan, which lasts around an hour, includes checking blood pressure, heart and artery health, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels, as well as carrying out mole mapping.
To date, Neko has carried out 10,000 scans in London and Stockholm and 100,000 more prospective customers have signed up to its waiting list.
The latest fundraising round, led by Lightspeed Ventures, is expected to help Neko accelerate its expansion into new markets, particularly the States. Lightspeed also backs Stripe, Mistral, and Epic Games.
“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,” said Neko co-founder and CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne.
Customers are expected to use Neko as a repeat service so they can benchmark their health and track changes over time. That makes customers a potential lifetime goldmine if they can be tempted back for repeat visits on an annual basis.
Indeed, four in five customers book and prepay for their next appointment the following year, according to Neko.
Lightspeed Ventures partner, Bejul Somaia, said the high level of repeat bookings in addition to Neko’s extensive waiting list gave him a ”high level of confidence” that the startup would go onto bigger things.
The preventative healthcare market has undergone a revolution as technological advancement opens up swathes of previously untouched data that gives users the opportunity to access marginal gains in their health.
Millionaires like Bryan Johnson, who is undertaking an outlandish attempt at immortality, have offered an exaggerated vision of the potential for increasing longevity with state-of-the-art preventative technology.
Products like Neko's are aimed at the mass consumer market, and Ek suggests that this preventative healthcare revolution is only just beginning. The Spotify founder compared his startup to Apple in terms of how it could use vertical integration to secure its supply chain and become competitive.
Ek, who has often warred with Apple through his other company, Spotify, doubled down on Neko’s similarities to the company.
“We’re not selling a product, we’re selling an experience. This experience will keep on improving,” Ek told the Financial Times. “Where we are today, I like to believe that we will look back at this as the first iPod.”
