Neko Health's $500M Bet on Unflattering Body Scans
16 Jul 2026
Neko Health has reopened its Stockholm clinic, is preparing a second location in the same city, and is gearing up to launch in New York — all on the back of a $500m Series C round. The full-body scanning startup, founded by serial entrepreneur Hjalmar Nilsonne and Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek, is betting that its data-rich, sometimes unflattering body 'avatars' can nudge customers into lasting health behaviour change.
What's new
The company's core product — a full-body scan that generates a detailed, visual avatar of a customer's health metrics — has been upgraded with improved blood circulation testing compared to last year's version. Neko Health reports an 80% average yearly customer return rate, a figure central to its recurring-revenue model.
But the retention story isn't linear. Nilsonne has acknowledged that retention drops between a customer's first and second scan, before rising again from the second to the third. His explanation: once customers understand why the scan matters, they commit to the new behaviour. In other words, the model may rely on customers pushing through an early adoption trough before habitual use kicks in.
Why this matters beyond the hype
The $500m Series C signals investor confidence in a business model that fuses hardware-driven data visualization with recurring service revenue — an approach that could be closely watched as a bellwether for preventive health-tech more broadly. Expansion into New York further suggests demand for this category may be extending beyond Neko's home market.
At the same time, the retention dip between the first and second scan is a real risk factor. If early drop-off isn't resolved, it could threaten the recurring-revenue foundation the business depends on — a vulnerability worth monitoring as Neko scales into new geographies.
Why founders should care
For founders building behaviour-change products — health, fitness, habit-formation apps, or anything reliant on repeat engagement — Neko's data likely reflects a broader pattern: an initial retention trough is probable before user commitment solidifies. Products that ask customers to change behaviour may need to expect and design for this dip rather than treat it as failure.
The funding round itself may also be a signal worth watching: it's plausible that investors are increasingly willing to back health-tech models that combine physical infrastructure (clinics) with software and data products, rather than pure digital-only plays. Founders operating hybrid physical-digital service models should likely anticipate the operational complexity of scaling clinics and software in parallel — balancing real estate, staffing, and customer experience alongside product development.
What's still unclear
Several important details remain unreported: the valuation resulting from the $500m raise, which investors participated, the exact timeline for the New York launch, and how Neko's 80% retention rate stacks up against industry benchmarks for health and wellness services. It's also unclear what specific behavioural changes — beyond the retention numbers — are actually attributable to the 'unflattering avatar' design choice itself.
Until more of that context surfaces, Neko Health's story reads as a promising but still partially untested case study: strong capital backing and expansion momentum, paired with an early retention challenge that the company says resolves itself — but hasn't yet fully proven at scale.