Practo’s co-founder and CEO, Shashank ND, just launched a new preventive healthcare company called Cent. He’s already secured around $5 million in seed funding (about ₹45.8 crore). This move is a big deal for direct-to-consumer healthcare in India, where tech, data, and prevention are becoming more and more important.
Cent is a platform that wants to spot life-threatening diseases before you even feel sick. It uses fancy imaging, AI, and different diagnostic tests to find health risks early on. This fits into the larger trend of direct-to-consumer healthcare in India, which is moving toward more proactive and custom solutions.
Shashank ND started Cent with Anshul Khandelwal, who used to be the CMO at Ola, and Arpit Garg, who has tons of experience in sales. The team’s goal is to create a new type of health service in India that focuses on finding diseases early and improving long-term health.
OneFlow Holdings, Shashank ND’s family office, along with South Park Commons are backing Cent. While the exact funding amount hasn’t been made public, industry insiders are saying it’s around $5 million. This shows that investors are getting more confident in new companies that are using tech to change healthcare.
Cent’s main idea is to change preventive care by combining a bunch of advanced tests into one complete health checkup. The platform uses full-body MRI scans, low-dose CT scans, DEXA scans, ECG tests, and checks over 120 things in your blood and pee. AI helps analyze all this data. With this setup, Cent can check for over 300 possible problems, like cancer, heart issues, brain disorders, and risks to your metabolism.
The goal is all about prevention. Cent is short for Century, and the founders want to help people live healthier, longer lives by finding diseases early. This fits right in with what people want these days: preventive health, living longer, and personalized healthcare.
Cent started quietly earlier this year and has already done 1,500 scans, mostly on people who weren’t feeling any symptoms. The company says that 26% of those scans showed something important that needed to be checked out, and 4% found serious conditions that needed immediate treatment. These early results prove that there’s a demand for preventive testing in India.
The company is growing fast, reporting 50% growth month by month since starting its operations, and is making about $2 million in revenue each year. Cent wants to do around 5,000 scans by the end of the year as it expands its facilities.
Cent is planning to open screening centers in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru next month, and then expand to Pune and Hyderabad. These centers will use a standard process to keep things efficient, lower costs, and make it easier to grow the platform across the country.
Cent’s appearance reflects a larger change in healthcare, where companies are moving away from just treating sickness and toward preventing it and predicting it. Advances in AI, imaging, and data are creating new ways to do business, especially in preventive testing.
For those who are following the business scene in India, Cent’s launch is a major moment for healthcare, AI, and direct-to-consumer platforms. As healthcare in India keeps changing, companies like Cent are likely to play a vital role in shaping how we approach preventive medicine.
With solid leaders, early success, and new funding, Cent is trying to change preventive healthcare and boost the direct-to-consumer healthcare scene in India.
