The Body Scan Sweden Can't Stop Talking About

Neko Health just raised another €24 million and hit a €1.67 billion valuation, but the real story is what happens to the data afterward.

A friend at work spent twenty minutes last month describing her Neko Health appointment in more detail than I've ever heard anyone describe a doctor's visit. The lighting, the rotating arm full of sensors, the printout she got afterward, thick as a small brochure, showing her skin, her heart rhythm and her blood work all mapped and scored. She wasn't complaining. She sounded proud, the way people get proud after a good workout or a spotless apartment. I asked how long she'd waited for the appointment. Eight months. That number stuck with me longer than anything else she said.

The raise. 

Neko Health, the Stockholm-based preventative health startup founded by Spotify's Daniel Ek and entrepreneur Hjalmar Nilsonne, announced on July 3 that it had raised another €24 million, pushing its valuation to SEK 17.8 billion, roughly €1.67 billion. The round comes eighteen months after the company's $260 million Series B, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with General Catalyst, Atomico, Lakestar and others joining in. Neko now runs body-scan clinics in Stockholm, London and New York, each built around roughly seventy sensors that combine 3D imaging, skin mapping and blood analysis into a single twenty-minute visit. Founded in 2018, the company reached unicorn status in 2025, seven years after its first clinic opened its doors.

The model. 

What makes Neko interesting isn't the scanning technology itself, medical imaging has existed for decades. It's the packaging. The company sells the experience as consumer wellness rather than clinical diagnostics, closer to a spa visit than a hospital referral. That framing has produced waitlists that would embarrass most public healthcare systems: one reviewer who wrote about her visit this year noted that roughly 100,000 people were in line for a slot. For a country whose public system already ranks among the world's more efficient, that queue says something about what people are willing to pay to skip it.

The pattern. 

Neko also fits a familiar Swedish pattern: a Spotify alumnus recycling capital and reputation into a new venture, the same path Klarna's early team and dozens of other Stockholm founders have taken. Sweden's startup ecosystem is now valued at roughly €239 billion, with more unicorns per capita than almost anywhere in Europe, and healthtech has become one of its busiest categories alongside fintech and climate. Neko's new round is modest next to its own Series B, but it lands at a moment when investors are asking harder questions about consumer health data. A company built entirely on collecting and interpreting that data has to answer them eventually.

My read. 

I like what Neko has built more than I trust how little it says about data retention. The company's public materials lean heavily on the word privacy without explaining, in anything I could find, how long scan images and blood results are stored or who can access them beyond the clinic. That gap is common in consumer healthtech, but Neko is now valued like a company that should know better. Raising capital on the promise of prevention is the easy part. Earning the trust to hold decades of someone's biometric history is the part nobody has priced in yet.

The question. 

Neko's founders built Spotify on the bet that people would trade privacy for convenience once the product felt good enough. The body scan is making the same bet, just with higher stakes than a playlist. Whether Swedish and European regulators let that bet run as freely as the streaming one did is worth watching as Neko's valuation, and its waitlist, keep climbing.

Reader FAQs

What exactly does a Neko Health scan check for? 
A: It combines roughly seventy sensors for 3D body imaging, skin and mole mapping, cardiovascular signals and blood analysis in a single twenty-minute visit.

Why does Sweden keep producing healthtech unicorns like this? 

A: Spotify and Klarna created a generation of founders and capital that keeps recycling into new companies, and healthtech has become one of the most active categories in Sweden's roughly €239 billion startup ecosystem.

Is Neko Health available outside Sweden? 

A: Yes, it currently runs clinics in Stockholm, London and New York, with waitlists reported in the tens of thousands.

Should I be worried about what happens to my scan data? 

A: Neko's public materials emphasize privacy but don't detail retention periods or access policies in depth, which is a real gap for a company holding this much biometric data.

Will this kind of preventative health scanning become mainstream in Sweden? 

A: That depends on whether regulators and public trust keep pace with the growth, since Neko's valuation and waitlist are both climbing faster than the transparency around its data practices.