Neko Health Lands in New York With 300,000 on Waitlist

Neko Health, the body-scan startup co-founded by Spotify's David Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, has landed in New York with a global waitlist already topping 300,000 people, according to the company.

The Swedish company has raised nearly $1 billion in total funding. Its one-hour scan uses advanced technology to screen for issues in the blood, skin, and metabolism. The company pairs that hardware with advanced computer vision to analyze results.

The New York launch marks Neko Health's entry into the largest healthcare market in the world — and one of the most contested. Farooq Abbasi, whose Preface Ventures invested in the company, argues the United States is exactly where preventative medicine needs the most help. He sat down with TechCrunch to discuss the bet.

Abbasi contends that preventative care utilization is low in the U.S. because people worry about what it costs. Neko's answer is a flat $500 price for a one-hour scan. Insurance does not cover it, but the service should qualify as an acceptable expense for people with Health Savings Accounts.

"I think preventative care and healthcare should be cheap and accessible," Abbasi said.

That price point positions Neko between boutique longevity clinics charging thousands of dollars and routine primary care that rarely offers comprehensive screening. Abbasi, for his part, has been scanned twice and says he loves the experience.

"I think there should be Neko clinics everywhere," he said.

More biomarkers, more data

The product has grown substantially since Abbasi first tried it. He points to the expansion of the blood panel as a concrete measure of that progress.

"In my generation one scan, it was a blood test with 15 biomarkers," he said. "It was fifty-five this time."

That jump — from 15 to 55 biomarkers in a single session — illustrates the company's core pitch: repeated scans that generate longitudinal health data, not one-off checkups. The computer vision layer adds another dimension, screening skin and other indicators at a scale no physician could match manually.

Abbasi sees Neko as part of a broader pattern of artificial intelligence improving the medical sector. He rejects the framing of the company as another wellness fad. The scans give people "actionable insights to make their lives better," he said.

That distinction matters commercially. The wellness market runs on unverified claims and thin data. Neko is building its reputation on measurable outputs — biomarker counts, screening results, repeat customers — which is what the company will need if it wants credibility with U.S. consumers and regulators alike.

The road ahead

Neko still faces significant hurdles in the American market. The company must solve scaling, and it needs regulatory approval to operate at anything approaching national reach. A 300,000-person waitlist means little if clinics can only process a fraction of that demand, and U.S. medical regulation is far more complex than Sweden's.

The insurance question also lingers. Without coverage, Neko's addressable market skews toward people who can pay $500 out of pocket or hold Health Savings Accounts. That is a real market, but it is not the mass accessibility Abbasi says he wants.

He remains an optimist on both counts. He hopes more venture dollars will pour into the right companies in preventative care, and he does not think anything in the U.S. healthcare system is too broken to fix.

For now, Neko is eyeing an expansion across the U.S., with New York as its beachhead. Whether a Swedish scan startup can convert a six-figure waitlist into a scaled American business — at $500 a scan, without insurance — will be one of the more telling tests of whether preventative medicine can work as a consumer market rather than a luxury service.