When Neko Health launched its first clinic in February 2023, it took just a couple of hours to sell out slots for full body scans. The company, which was founded by Spotify founder Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne in 2018, was buzzing.
Since then, Neko has moved the location of its clinic in Stockholm as well as opened one in London. It has a total waitlist across its clinics of 100k.
“This is consumers reaching into their wallets for their credit card or Apple Pay. I think there’s a growing demand for this type of service,” says Atomico founder Niklas Zennström, an investor in Neko.
In January this year Neko announced a $260m Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, which valued the company at $1.7bn. Sifted examines how that valuation stacks up.
What do customers get at Neko Health?
Visitors to one of Neko’s clinics get a full-body skin scan, which captures more than 2,000 images in 2D and 3D, as well as thermal imaging to detect skin irregularities. There are eight different measuring devices, including ECG, chest and throat scanners. Customers also get a blood circulation analysis and an eye pressure check. The whole thing takes 30-45 minutes, after which patients receive a digital avatar of their body, and a doctor spends 15 minutes reviewing the findings with the patient.
Most of the tests that Neko does — except for the full-body skin scan — are typically available as part of public healthcare.
When Neko first opened, scans cost €150. According to the company’s most recent financial report from 2023, Neko did 2,707 scans between February and December that year.
The company reported net revenue of SEK 5.5m (€500k) against operational costs of SEK 106m (€9.7m), SEK 56m (€5m) of which was spent on employee salaries. By the end of 2023, Neko had 44 employees.
Since then, scan prices have increased to €250 in Sweden and €356 (£299) in London. The company announced in January that it had completed 10k scans between its Stockholm and London locations, with the London clinic only opening in the last quarter of 2024. Neko also has plans to increase the number of clinics in the UK and expand to the US this year.
The cost of scaling Neko Health’s business model
Neko declined to share more recent numbers with Sifted. But assuming the company performed about 7,000 scans last year, with an equal split between London and Stockholm and an average charge of €300, its revenue for 2024 would be around €2.1m — four times the 2023 figure. A source close to the company tells Sifted that the London clinic alone will be able to do a minimum of 20k scans a year, bringing in £6m (€7.1m).
Neko has also more than doubled its headcount since 2023. According to the company’s website, it employs more than 100 doctors, engineers and researchers. If Neko had 100 employees in 2024, by the end of last year employee costs would have risen from SEK 56m (€5m) in 2023 to SEK 127m (€11.6m), based on its 2023 figures.
A commercial lease in Marylebone, London, where Neko has its clinic in the city, has an annual average rent of £180k (€214k). Keeping all other operational costs the same, its total operational cost of last year is likely to be above SEK 177m (€16m). That suggests for each scan the company would be spending around SEK 25k (€2,285) — almost 10 times the amount of revenue coming in from customers.
Zennström tells Sifted that it is still very early days for Neko, but because the company is heavily invested in R&D and new sensory technology and analytical capabilities, he believes that Neko will be able to collect and analyse larger sets of healthcare data over time.
“[AI is] going to be used to analyse this data and to even do better predictions,” Zennström says. “We believe that’s possible and that Hjalmar and Daniel and their team have the capabilities to do this. And I think this is what the new investors are seeing as well.”
Valuation comparison
Comparing Neko’s valuation to other healthtech startups is tricky. It doesn’t fit neatly into the same category as longevity clinics, which typically charge more than €20k per year in membership fees.
Hyped MRI scan startups such as Bryan Johnson’s Ezra, which has opened 18 clinics in the US, eke out a valuation a tenth the size of Neko’s.
Swedish digital health scaleup Kry — which also has physical clinics — was last valued at $2bn (€1.8bn) in 2022. In 2023, Kry reported €188m in revenue and €78m in pre-tax losses. It operates 55 clinics across Sweden, Norway, the UK and France and has about 4,000 employees, according to the company.
Kry’s revenue multiple (valuation divided by revenue) is 10.6x. Using the same calculation method, Neko is worth 747x its revenue.
For context, the average revenue multiple for AI companies in 2025 is 23.4x, according to Finro financial consulting. Neko would have to deliver 132k scans a year for it to be equal to that.
One investor close to the company explained that although the valuation may be high, it can still be good for investors.
“You need to be able to motivate such a deal for yourself and the investment in Ek’s Neko is a marketing deal for the VC. It’s like investing in Mistral – even though one knows the price is too high, it’s good to be able to say one was in on it,” they say.
The Daniel Ek effect
Neko is not the only one trying to ride the consumer healthcare wave. But it has one major advantage: Ek.
In a 2022 interview Northzone partner PJ Pärson, an early Spotify-backer, told Sifted that Neko cofounder Ek was one of the few CEOs to have proved capable of leading a business all the way from small startup to publicly-traded tech giant.
“He is probably the best example of a person who grows in a way that few others manage,” Pärson said at the time. Northzone isn’t among Neko Health’s backers.
As well as Atomico, Neko’s investors include General Catalyst and Lakestar, the latter of which counts Klaus Hommel as a partner, an early angel investor in Klarna, Spotify and Skype.
“There’s no doubt there’s a Daniel Ek effect. But the Daniel Ek effect is also real, it’s not just a hoax,” Zennström says.
“I’ve worked with many founders, and it’s been amazing to work with [Ek] on Neko, he’s extraordinary. But there is also this where investors see what he did with Spotify. They don’t want to miss out on the next thing.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/is-daniel-eks-neko-health-worth-1-7bn/
