Neko Health, the body-scanning AI health startup from Spotify's Daniel Ek, opens in London
Prevention is better than cure, as the saying goes. Today, a splashy startup that has taken that concept to heart
Prevention is better than cure, as the saying goes. Today, a splashy startup that has taken that concept to heart — literally and figuratively — is expanding.
Neko Health was co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne with a mission to improve preventative healthcare with annual full body scans and AI-powered insights that can detect conditions like heart disease and skin cancer. Now, the Swedish company is launching in London, its first city outside of its home market.
For £299 and an hour of your time, the company runs a series of scans and tests that it says creates “millions” of datapoints that help determine your state of health across a range of cardiovascular, metabolic, and other conditions. An in-person meeting with a doctor to discuss the data is included in the session. Those interested in getting in line for a visit can sign up here.
The company is coming to the U.K. on the heels of a strong start in Stockholm, where it has opened two clinics in its first year of operation. To date, it has scanned 2,707 people, and while 78.5% of them were found to have no health issues, results for some 14.1% of visitors raised issues that required further medical treatment. Some 1%, it said, were identified to have “severe” cardiovascular, metabolic, or cancerous conditions. Of that group, none were aware of their conditions prior to visiting Neko, the company said.
Neko is Japanese for “cat” and Nilsonne tells me that it’s a reference to cats having nine lives, or more specifically a lot of lucky breaks. “That’s how we would hope that our system feels for our users,” he said.
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