Neko Health Raises $700 Million to Bring Body Scans to America

Neko Health, the preventative-care startup founded by Spotify billionaire Daniel Ek, has raised $700 million to build a business around full-body scanning — and it has just arrived in the United States.

The figure anchors one of the most aggressive bets in consumer health. Neko Health is not chasing patients who are already sick. Its model centers on scanning the body to catch problems before they become disease, a category that investors are now funding at scale.

And Neko is not alone. Midjourney, the company best known for its AI image generation, is building its own body scanner. Function Health has also raised significant capital to develop its preventative-health platform. Three well-funded companies, one thesis: healthcare should intervene earlier than it does today.

The question facing all of them is whether body scanning can move from a premium consumer service into the broader healthcare system.

That question took center stage on a recent episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast. Host Dominic-Madori Davis spoke with Farooq Abbasi, founder and general partner at Preface Ventures and an investor in Neko Health, about how the startup compares with other consumer-health companies — and what has to happen for scanning to become part of mainstream medicine.

Why investors are betting big

The $700 million raised by Neko Health signals conviction that preventative diagnostics can become a standalone market rather than a niche add-on. Abbasi's firm, Preface Ventures, put capital behind that thesis as an investor in the company.

The competitive field explains the urgency. Midjourney's entry into body scanning brings deep AI expertise to hardware. Function Health's fundraising shows that capital is flowing to preventative-health platforms even without a scanning device at the center of the offering.

For consumers, the pitch is straightforward: find out what is happening inside your body before symptoms appear. For the healthcare system, the harder question is integration.

The integration problem

On the Equity episode, Davis and Abbasi discussed exactly what has to happen for body scanning to enter the broader healthcare system. That transition is the make-or-break variable for the category.

A consumer service can thrive on out-of-pocket spending from wealthy early adopters. But a $700 million raise implies ambitions beyond a boutique business. Scanning becomes transformative only if insurers, physicians and hospital systems treat the results as clinically actionable.

That is the gap between a compelling product and a changed industry. Neko Health's expansion into the United States — the world's largest healthcare market — puts the thesis to its toughest test.

A crowded race with one prize

The entrance of Midjourney and Function Health into adjacent territory raises the stakes. If preventative scanning works as a business, first movers with capital and clinical credibility will capture the market. If it does not, the category's biggest raises will become its most expensive lessons.

For now, the money says it works. Neko Health carries a founder with a track record of reshaping an industry — Daniel Ek built Spotify into a global platform — and the backing of investors like Preface Ventures who have studied the competitive field up close.

The Equity podcast episode lays out the full picture, including Abbasi's comparison of Neko with other consumer-health startups and his view on the conditions required for scanning to go mainstream. Listeners can find Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast and Spotify, and can follow the show on X and Threads at @EquityPod.

The next signal to watch: whether Neko Health's American rollout converts a $700 million bet into clinical adoption — or leaves body scanning as a luxury product on the fringe of medicine.