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Stockholm startup Neko Health made a big bet on consumers who want to learn about health conditions and how to prevent things from going wrong. Now investors are betting big on Neko.
The Series B startup, which TechCrunch exclusively valued Neko at $1.8 billion, has raised a new $260 million in funding.
Neko will use the capital to expand into new markets such as the US; continue to develop diagnostics with potential acquisitions; and opening more clinics based on demand. With more than 100,000 people on its waiting list now – up from more than 40,000 just a few months ago – Neko has so far scanned and evaluated 10,000 patients in Stockholm and its clinics. newer market From London.
“It’s very clear that there is an incredible demand for a different way of thinking about healthcare,” CEO and co-founder Hjalmar Nilsonne said in an interview. He spoke to TechCrunch via video link from New York, where he is working on laying the groundwork for establishing clinics in the US market.
According to him, the US is a priority because it is currently the country with the largest number of people on the waiting list outside of Europe. “Of course we want to come to the US. We think there’s a lot we can contribute to the ecosystem here, which was made possible by this round of funding,” he said.
The company’s new investor, Lightspeed Venture Partners, is leading this Series B, with participation from General Catalyst, OG Venture Partners, Rosello, Lakestar and Atomico. Round a Series A $65 million in 2023 from Prima Materia, an investment firm co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, another co-founder of Lakestar, Atomico, General Catalyst, and Neko. Prima Materia also seeded Neko with its seed funding, but is not an investor in this latest round.
The funding and Neko’s growth come at a time of changing demands in the healthcare world.
Regardless of whether healthcare systems are publicly supported or privatized around the world, there is a growing focus on preventive healthcare to detect symptoms before they become problems, including offsetting the costs of dealing with chronic and complex conditions in a population that is living longer than ever before. .
At the same time, a great deal of technology has been injected into the worlds of medicine and health: new devices, new insights and, for example, applications supported by artificial intelligence are changing the way doctors interact with patients and what they can diagnose. and what patients are looking for in a medical environment.
Not all these developments are developing smoothly – very far from it – but they show few signs of moving away, and Neko plays into all of these changes.
The Neko Health experience involves visiting a clinic — calm, futuristic, minimalist — where, for £300, the customer gets a one-hour exam based on special hardware and software. Neko says this exam generates “millions of health data points.”
Moles and other marks on your skin are detected and counted as part of the screening for skin cancer; waist circumference, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, heart rate, grip strength and other parameters are measured and metabolic syndrome, stroke, heart attack, diabetes etc. used to determine whether you are at risk. The visit includes doctor’s consultations and referrals for follow-ups if necessary.
These follow-ups may come shortly after the initial visit—for example, additional monitoring of blood pressure or heart activity—or it may be another full appointment the following year. Nilsonne said that now 80% of her clients have rebooked and pre-paid for appointments within a year.
Neko’s life had a rather fortuitous beginning, considering it’s a company that built its entire ethos on the power of data and forward planning.
Ek was re-established in 2018 after reaching out to Nilsonne on Twitter to chat about the state of the healthcare market in response to Nilsonne’s tweet. No experience in this field – Nilsson’s previous start was in climate technology – but through ongoing conversations the initial ideas for Neko began to take shape.
It took six years to assemble the team and develop Neko’s vertically integrated approach. Even so, Nilsonne said Neko went into the market hoping for the best, but wasn’t sure their idea would resonate; Now, according to the company, demand exceeds capacity.
Looking to the future, in addition to building more clinics to accommodate more users, Neko is focusing on research and development around its medical equipment and software.
It starts from a fairly low technological base due to the costs of building and owning medical devices until the very end. “The average EKG machine in a primary care facility is 15 years old, which means the software is 15 years old,” Nilsonne said. “We have a completely different model where we’re vertically integrated, meaning we make these devices, we make the software, and we have the clinic.”
He added that Neko’s goal is to have updates on an annual cadence, bring more parameters to measure, and possibly have different service levels at different price points.
“Today, body scanning is kind of an iPod moment for Neko,” he said. “The iPod was an iconic product that people loved, and it was exciting. But nobody uses an iPod today. This allowed Apple to invest in this incredible paradigm of handheld computing devices. So we see this as the beginning of a journey where we’re trying to contribute to very cost-effective, high-quality preventive diagnostics, and every year we’ll be able to do more with less and less. .”
The funding round, he said, “will allow us to double down and really increase our investment to make the product better, which ultimately solves some of the major challenges in healthcare.”
It will also give Neko a chance to put more space between herself and others looking at preventive health opportunities Zoe in France and Aware in Germany. Capital can also separate it from the efforts of public health services, e.g Health check It is provided by the NHS in the UK covering many of the areas Neko does.
A few weeks ago, I heard from one of Neko’s early backers that some of the most persistent waiters are investors who want to check out the company first-hand for their own body’s health. and from their own funds.
It seems that getting Lightspeed off the waiting list quickly paid off. As part of this funding round, Lightspeed partner Bejul Somaia will join Neko’s board.
