Already a Hit in NYC, Neko Health’s Body Scan Clinic Plots Nationwide Expansion

Neko Health’s waitlist has topped 50,000, and the company co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek is adding clinics in New York, Miami, San Fran and D.C. as attainable luxury wellness takes hold

What does it say about a culture when one of New York’s latest waitlists isn’t for a buzzy new restaurant, but for a preventive health scan? 

Nothing definitive, maybe. But it’s telling.

Before Neko Health opened its first U.S. clinic in New York City’s SoHo last month, more than 25,000 New Yorkers had already joined the waitlist. The preventive health company, co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek and CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne, says that list has since more than doubled to over 50,000 in just two weeks.

Now Neko is expanding. A second Manhattan clinic will open at Brookfield Place in January, and a Miami location is due by the end of this year.

The expansion follows Neko Health’s $700 million Series C, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by O.G. Venture Partners. Several tech and celebrity investors participated in the round, including Mark Zuckerberg.

Other locations in the pipeline include San Francisco and Washington, D.C., Neko Health says.

The demand may point to something bigger than one clinic. Americans are increasingly frustrated with health care and, at the same time, more tuned in to their health than ever. In a split economy, that combination could open a new middle lane, with diagnostics that look and feel boutique, at a price some consumers can stretch to afford.

That said, the people who don’t have to stretch at all are lining up too.

Neko says Karlie Kloss, Paris Hilton, real estate broker Ryan Serhant, Mets owner Steve Cohen, Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan and former Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist are among those who have taken the scan since the SoHo clinic opened.

The $499 scan is noninvasive and radiation-free, and it focuses on cardiometabolic health and skin cancer. Cameras using visible light, infrared thermal imaging and depth sensing map the skin and flag moles worth a closer look. Inside the clinic, members also get blood pressure checks, a body composition analysis, an EKG and other cardiac measurements, grip strength and eye pressure tests and a 53-biomarker blood panel processed on-site.

Just as notable is what the scan doesn’t do, and Neko is upfront about it. The company says the scan isn’t an MRI or CT scan and doesn’t produce images of internal organs. It doesn’t screen for breast, colon, lung, prostate or most other cancers, and while it can flag signs associated with coronary artery disease, it can’t diagnose or rule it out. That’s the key difference from Prenuvo, which uses whole-body MRI to image the inside of the body. 

Members then sit down with a clinician to review the findings, all within about an hour. Afterward, results live in Neko’s app, which can also pull in daily data from wearables such as Oura and Whoop through Apple Health. 

In Sweden and the U.K., where more than 100,000 people have been scanned, Neko says 75% of members book and prepay for their next scan before they leave, and 80% book a third after their second. The company hasn’t shared U.S. rebooking figures yet.

“What we’ve seen is unmistakable: when people can see their health clearly and know what to do about it, they get healthier,” Neko Health co-founder and CEO Hjalmar Nilsonne said when the New York clinic opened.

Neko’s stateside arrival lines up with two broader trends, the first of which is frustration. In Gallup’s December 2025 Health and Healthcare poll, only 24% of Americans rated U.S. health care coverage as excellent or good, the lowest reading in two decades, and 23% said the system is in crisis. A separate West Health-Gallup index found that just 49% of U.S. adults could consistently afford care in 2025.

The second is focus. According to McKinsey’s 2025 Future of Wellness research, 84% of U.S. consumers called wellness a top or important priority, and consumers said they were less likely to cut back on wellness than on clothing or entertainment if their finances worsened.

None of that means traditional health care is out of the picture or that Neko Health is meant to be a replacement. The startup says members who need follow-up care can be referred to partner providers in New York, including Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Mount Sinai Health System and Schweiger Dermatology or to their own doctors.

Neko also accepts HSA and FSA payments so that some customers can use pre-tax dollars they’ve already set aside for health care.

As consumers show they’re willing to pay out of pocket for a clearer picture of their health, several channels are emerging. Fitness operators such as Life Time have added Miora, in-club longevity clinics offering bloodwork and medical services at select locations and wearable makers such as Whoop now sell Quest-powered blood testing.

If there’s any doubt the market is heading toward a price that’s easier to swallow, consider Fountain Life. The longevity company, co-founded by Tony Robbins, whose full membership runs about $21,500, has rolled out Base, a $595-a-year tier available in Florida and Texas. It includes testing of more than 100 biomarkers through Quest Diagnostics, a Dexa body composition scan at a Fountain Life center and access to Zori, the company’s AI-powered health platform.

But few appear to combine a screening, bloodwork and a sit-down with a clinician in a single visit, under one roof, for $499. For now, at least.

“New York is the starting point. New Yorkers place an incredible value on their time and have exceptionally high expectations for how they spend it,” Ek said. “This city doesn’t settle for good enough, and neither do we.”