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Neko Health is taking its body-scanning technology to America. The Swedish diagnostic health clinic, cofounded by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek (also the cofounder and CEO of Spotify), said on Wednesday that it will launch a location in New York City, its first in the United States, in the spring of this year. The 3-year-old startup, which offers comprehensive body scans to monitor risk factors for a range of health conditions from prediabetes to cancer, already has a presence in London; Manchester, U.K.; and Stockholm. For the first time, technology is enabling a fundamentally new healthcare experience centered on prevention, Nilsonne, the company’s CEO, said in a statement. We’re excited to bring our unique model of care to the world’s biggest healthcare market with the opening of our first U.S. location in spring this year. The exact site of the planned New York City location has not been revealed. The announcement comes as Neko Health has seen surging demand for its Body Scan service, which the company describes as a preventative health check for your future self. Scans check for skin irregularities, gauge the health of your cardiovascular system, assess blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and more as a part of a 60-minute assessment. Neko Health says its scans use proprietary sensors, 3D imaging, and blood analysis, and results are delivered on-site within minutes, followed by a consultation with a medical professional to discuss personalized health findings. [Photo: Neko Health] Poised for growth The idea has caught on, according to Neko Health, which says it delivered six times more scans in 2025 than in 2024, with global signups now exceeding 300,000 people. The firms data also shows that of the thousands of scans it completed in Stockholm during 2024, 1.2% revealed life-threatening conditions, and 6.4% found medically significant findings requiring clinical attention. Neko Healths services have caught the attention of the media, and have been reviewed by writers and reporters for publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and GQ, among others, with generally positive takeaways. Its also caught the attention of investors. A year ago, the company announced that it had raised $260 million as part of a Series B funding round. That put the companys valuation at $1.8 billion.
Category:
E-Commerce
Andy Sauer is no stranger to making waves in the beverage business. As the CEO of Garage Beer, he defied the odds by turning a small craft brewery into a national name, despite competing in an industry dominated by legacy players. Now hes looking to shake things up in another popular beverage category: the soda aisle. Sauers latest venture is a product called Roxberry, which hes dubbing the first modern kids soda. The brand launched earlier this month at more than 2,200 Walmart stores, 450 Krogers, Meijer and Harris Teeter locations nationwide, and a handful of independent grocers. This soda is unlike the sugary drinks most consumers remember from childhood: Its made primarily of carbonated water and fruit and veggie juice, contains just 5 grams of sugar from natural sweeteners, and has no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. A four-pack costs $5.99. In an era when a new category of better-for-you (BFY) soda brands for adults, like Poppi and Olipop, has exploded in popularity, Sauer says the options for kids have largely remained siloed in two main categories: Either they can drink the same brands we grew up with, like Capri Sun or Kool-Aid, which are packed with ingredients many parents would rather skip; or theyre stuck with healthier, less visually exciting options, like seltzer water. Roxberry aims to be a third option thats a win-win for kids and parents. Two-hit wonder Sauer has experience turning a nascent RTD brand into a household name. Garage Beer, which he acquired in 2021 and relaunched in 2023, has shown triple-digit year-over-year growth, with sales increasing more than 500% in the 12 months ended in early April 2025, he says. Its now valued at around $200 million and is continuing to grow, despite an overall slump in the beer industry, according to a September report from The Wall Street Journal. In large part, Garage owes its success to a savvy marketing strategy: Its sleek branding, consistent dialogue with its target audience, and catchy slogan (beer-flavored beer) make it feel like an approachable craft beer for the everyman. Sauer is taking those lessons to Roxberry, which is prioritizing an in-depth brand story and centering everything on the phrase Fizz for kids. That old phrase, Marketing is saying one thing a hundred times rather than a hundred things one time is very true for this brand as well, Sauer says. The idea for Roxberry struck back in 2022. With four kids of his own at home, Sauer noticed that his family frequently butted heads in the beverage aisle. His kids were interested in classic sweetened fruit drink brands like Kool-Aid, but he was hesitant to buy them due to their high quantities of sugar. And so Roxberry came to lifefirst as a powdered mix-in before pivoting to a canned ready-to-drink format that mimics the soda brands kids already covet the most. The sodas initial launch comes in the three most popular flavors in kids beverages overall: strawberry lemonade, citrus, and fruit punch. We did a lot of work to find out which fruits and veggies come naturally with a better mouthfeel, better sweetness, Sauer says. Working with raw strawberries, raw lemon, raw carrotthose things are going to give you more of a sweet flavor naturally so that you don’t have to add a lot to it. Kool-Aid Man energy The first thing parents might notice when they see Roxberry on store shelves is that it looks nothing like the modern BFY brands theyre used to. According to Emily Heyward, chief brand officer at the agency Red Antler that led Roxberrys design, thats the point. When we built the brand for Roxberry, it was before the explosion of the Poppis and the Olipops, but I think they’ve tapped on something similar, which is that a lot of better-for-you brandsespecially in the kids spacesignal that theyre healthier just by being more boring, Heyward says. They strip out color, theyre matte instead of glossy, theyre very plain, to show that theyre different from the old-school brands that we grew up with. The result, Heyward says, is that most of the healthy options for kids on grocery store shelves just dont look very exciting. To combat this trend, Sauers brief was to bring back that Kool-Aid Man energy to the space. Red Antlers answer to that prompt is a brand that looks like it came straight from a sci-fi kids cartoon. From the quirky flavor names Ocean Potion, Pink Lava, and Galaxy Gulp to the anthropomorphic characters and alien landscapes on the packaging, everything about Roxberrys look suggests that its not just a beverage, but also its own universe. All of those characters that you seeand you just see them in little spots on the canthey have backstories, they have personalities. We went so deep, not because we’re planning to launch a TV show tomorrow, but because we wanted to ensure that we really had that richness,” Heyward says. For example, Heyward adds, one character named Chomp Chomp is described as loud, erratic, and entrepreneurial; an instigator who lives in the skies, makes deliveries, and creates crop circles. Even if this character is never officially named, she believes the lore gives the brand depth. While the majority of the Roxberry package is designed to entice shoppers with its bright, character-based imagery, smaller cues, like the phrases No fake stuff and 5g sugar signal to parents that the beverage is not a typical soda. In essence, both Heyward and Sauer agree: Roxberry is designed with kids in mind first and parents second. We were looking at the love we all had for these character-driven brands growing up, and how they felt like part of our pop culture universe,” Heyward says. “Well, why has that gone away? There are brands for adults that have tapped into that nostalgia a little bit, but I think that the kids brands have really played it safe.” Roxberry’s high-octane look gives the healthier-for-you kids beverage category a much-needed branding sugar rush.
Category:
E-Commerce
Minneapolis is currently inundated with two kinds of iceboth of which make it hard for residents to move about the city. The bone-chilling winter cold has left icy deposits on streets and sidewalks, while the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has run roughshod over them in what the Department of Homeland Security calls “the largest DHS operation ever.” As anyone whos ever set booted foot in Minnesota in winter can attest, gravity and overconfidence are no match for one of the worlds most slippery surfaces. Given the abundance of cameras that tend to follow ICE agents, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be multiple viral videos of agents absolutely biffing it on literal ice throughout the Twin Cities. The surging popularity of these videos, though, suggests ICEs critics are getting a lot more out of them than cold comfort. Midwestern progressives may have cheered such content no matter the context, but given recent events, the videos have taken on deeper resonance. Minneapolis has been at the center of a political firestorm since December, when President Trump seized on reports of social services fraud in the city, perpetrated in part by Somali Americans, to denigrate the areas entire deeply rooted Somali community. On January 6, DHS announced it was deploying as many as 2,000 agents into the city to crack down on fraud and, of course, undocumented immigrants. By the following afternoon, an agent had shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in broad daylight. In the days since Goods killing, tensions have erupted in Minneapolis and rippled across the country. Massive protests have sprung up throughout the Twin Cities, as well as from New York City to Portland, Oregon. Local politicians and national figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called out Trump for lying about what happened to Good, while Minnesota and Illinois have sued his administration to block the surge of federal agents. For now, though, the DHS incursion into Minnesota continues, disrupting the normal flow of day-to-day life in the Twin Cities. ICE is reportedly conducting door-to-door raids in some areas, and in one highly publicized incident, agents violently detained two U.S. citizens, one of whom is 17 years old, while they were working a shift at Target. (Both were later released, reportedly with injuries.) After agents started showing up at local schools, several districts have switched to remote learning. Some restaurants have closed their doors indefinitely, while touring acts have postponed shows in the city, citing the welfare of attendees. In fact, the only people who seem to want to visit Minneapolis at the moment are MAGA influencers hoping to squeeze some content out of the carnage. Given the dark, authoritarian overtones of DHSs citywide siege, its no wonder viewers are rejoicing in videos of ICE agents busting ass. @typicalelliott ThislllllIce attacks Ice making ice fall. Ice proceeds to shoot ice #ice Richard Strauss-Valzer from Der Rosenkavalier – First, came the clip in which a pair of agents ate it on an icy sidewalk together, causing one of their rifles to dischargethankfully hurting no bystanders. Then there was the video of an agent running down the street at full speed before hitting a slick thicket of ice, as captured from multiple angles. And lets not forget the agents who apparently could not get any locals to help them unstick their car from a snowy curb and wobbled around doing so themselves. Its all classic slapstick, practically begging for the Benny Hill theme song to be dubbed over it. As these clips proliferate online, another genre of viral video has emerged out of Minneapolis in tandemone that helps explain just what else the ice-fail videos are accomplishing. These videos could be called a learning series, since they depict agents approaching protesters and asking if they havent learned anything yet from recent events. (Learned what? a protester responds in one of the videos, before an agent smacks the phone out of her hand.) These videos appear to illustrate ICE agents expectations: that anyone disapproving of them shuld be cowed into respect and obedience. If protesters remain unfazed instead and continue mouthing off, the agents seem to suggest, well, who knows what could end up happening? Perhaps the same fate that met Good when she proved insufficiently respectful and obedient. The president suggested as much in comments he made aboard Air Force One on Mondayevidence that the blasé attitude ICE agents have toward use of force comes right from the top. Beyond doling out barely veiled threats, the agents in these videos also toe the party line that ICE is made up of hypercompetent heroes unfairly victimized by violent rioters. All they want is to surgically expunge criminal scum from the city, which they would accomplish easily, if only a well-coordinated domestic terrorist network would stop weaponizing vehicles at them. This is where the falling-down videos, and attendant memes, come in handy. These videos decidedly do not make ICE look like hypercompetent heroes. They make them look like the buffoons they are. They undercut the agents warrior self-mythology, reducing them to doofuses who dont realize winter ice might mean an attack of the killer sidewalks. The gleeful spread of these embarrassing clips sends the same message as the D.C. sandwich-thrower last summer and the wave of inflatable animals at the “No Kings” protests last fall. They help defang the vast threat represented by masked agents of state, rendering them eminently fallible. And the popularity of the videos also contradicts the preposterous notion that, as Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said on Fox News this week, “90% of the public are happy to see us.” Sure, its a small victory, but one that offers a strong reminder to the public to believe their eyes, not the spin from the administration. It might also help ensure thatwhether from Minnesotas natural elements or its fired-up citizenryICE agents will continue getting a chilly reception as long as they remain in the state. Have they not learned this lesson yet?
Category:
E-Commerce
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