Neko Health Opens $499 Scan Clinic in Soho With $700M War Chest

Neko, the full-body scanning startup cofounded by Spotify's Daniel Ek, has opened its first U.S. clinic in New York City's Soho neighborhood — backed by a fresh $700 million Series C raise.

The company has performed more than 100,000 of its $499 radiation-free scans since it began operating clinics. New York marks its entry into the U.S. market, with additional locations planned in Miami, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Neko is trying to rethink health care by focusing on data-rich analyses and preventive care rather than the traditional reactive model. To demonstrate the difference, the company has made clinic design as important as the scanning and diagnostics it performs.

The Soho space shows the strategy. Gently lit rooms, spare walls, and soft pastels give the clinic a minimal, futuristic feel that blends a high-end spa with a fashion boutique.

Architect Franquibel Lima led the design. A former global head of WeWork's design studios, Lima has designed Neko's other clinics in Stockholm, London, and Manchester, England. He says Neko's clinics differ from traditional healthcare environments partly because they are not geared around treating sick patients. The company sees more value in treating people before they become sick patients.

"For us to move from reactive healthcare into proactive healthcare, it requires a real mindset shift," Lima says.

Neko has tried to make its clinics feel like an experience rather than a cattle call. "If you think about traditional healthcare, it's typically cluttered. You have posters on the wall like here's your skeleton, and it's all about the average person," Lima says. "But we now have the technology to be able to be very personal and very individual."

The design draws inspiration from Apple stores and science fiction films. At street level, the storefront is a simple door emanating an amber glow. Inside, visitors walk down a brushed stainless steel stairwell into a white-walled waiting area, where a small greeting podium leads to a plush U-shaped seating area. Fluted wall coverings with backlighting give the space a cloudlike feel, and underlighting beneath the seats adds to the sense of floating.

In the all-white clinical area, lighting brightens and guides visitors into one of six scanning areas. Pastel yellow lights and paint emerge through the doorways of the scanning rooms, emitting what Lima calls a calming tone.

"We look at lighting not as an overlay to materials and finishes. We look at lighting as almost like a building component," he says. "It's a multisensorial experience that really prepares you to know more about your health."

As a premium service intended to complement primary care and other traditional health services, Neko can afford these extra design touches. But the company has ambitions of becoming a bigger part of how people stay healthy and catch problems before they snowball. Creating spaces people want to visit again and again is integral to that approach.

"Because we are a consumer brand, because we believe that consumers are the ones that drive change typically, instead of trying to do it through policy, then it's really important that we create environments where people walk into and think this doesn't feel like anything else that I felt before," Lima says.

The bet is now on U.S. consumers. If the Soho clinic and its planned Miami, San Francisco, and Washington follow-ups can turn prevention into a repeat-purchase experience, Neko will have a $700 million-funded template for expansion.