Healthtech startup Practo’s cofounder and CEO Shashank ND has launched a new venture for preventive healthcare called ‘Cent’. He has been joined by ex-Ola CMO Anshul Khandelwal and sales veteran Arpit Garg as cofounders.
Cent is a direct-to-consumer preventive healthcare intelligence platform that aims to detect life threatening diseases before symptoms appear through precision radiology. The ultimate goal of Cent, which is short for ‘Century’, is to help people live over a 100 years by detecting diseases before they start attacking the body.
The startup said it has raised a seed funding round from OneFlow Holdings, the family office of Shashank, and South Park Commons. While it didn’t disclose the funding amount, sources told Inc42 that Cent has raised around $5 Mn (about ₹45.8 Cr).
Cent’s diagnostic protocol combines advanced imaging, including whole-body MRI, low-dose CT and DEXA, along with ECG, over 120 blood and urine biomarkers, and AI-powered synthesis of results to detect cancer, cardiac, neurological, and metabolic (CCNM) risk in asymptomatic people. The assessment is followed by a clinical consultation.
“Five years ago, this level of integrated screening was not technically feasible. The convergence
of advanced MRI, AI-assisted radiology, and multi-omics analysis now allows us to screen for
300+ conditions in a single visit and a faster scan time,” Garg said.
While Cent came out of stealth mode today, it has been operational since the beginning of the ongoing financial year. During this time, it claims to have completed 1,500 scans on majorly asymptomatic patients, out of which 26% revealed relevant clinical findings and 4% found “critical conditions requiring immediate medical attention”.
Cent claims to have grown 50% month-on-month since becoming operational, recording an annualised revenue run rate of approximately $2 Mn. It is projected to complete 5,000 scans by year-end, propped by expanding capacity. It aims to build a network of single-purpose centres that will follow a single workflow to detect CCNM. This will allow it to optimise on costs and utilisation and ultimately scale across the country.
For now, Cent will start rolling out centres in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru from next month, with additional expansion in Pune and Hyderabad to be undertaken at a later date.
“India has built world-class treatment capability, but our healthcare system is still oriented around disease that has already declared itself. In the preventive space, we need dedicated infrastructure, the right technology, the right protocols, the right capital, built specifically for detection,” Shashank said.
A similar thesis is being followed by an array of preventive healthtech startups that are shifting focus on preventive rather than episodic care, especially as AI allows for more precision screening and diagnosis.
For instance, Biopeak, which is also building tech for early detection of health risks by organ mapping, raised $2.7 Mn in January to scale its network of clinics.
Meanwhile, Practo is looking to raise $100 Mn to $125 Mn in a pre-IPO round, Inc42 exclusively reported last month.
