Pomegra
Bengaluru preventive-health startup Cent raised $15 million from Blume Ventures and South Park Commons and bought AI radiology platform Medsee to speed up scan reporting.
Key Takeaways
- Cent raised a $15M Series A co-led by Blume Ventures and South Park Commons on October 27, 2026. Valuation was not disclosed.
- Cent acquired Medsee, an AI radiology reporting platform founded by Chitra Singh. Deal terms are undisclosed.
- The startup has run 10,000 whole-body scans and targets 10 million by 2035.
Lead
Cent, a Bengaluru-based preventive healthcare startup, announced a $15 million (about ₹143 crore) Series A on October 27, 2026. Blume Ventures and existing investor South Park Commons co-led the round. Individual backers include former Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin and Srinivas Narayanan, a former B2B chief technology officer at OpenAI.
The company also acquired Medsee, an AI-based radiology reporting platform. Cent will spend the new capital on hardware, AI and clinical research, and on hiring AI, engineering and clinical staff.
What Does Cent Actually Sell?
Cent sells a roughly two-hour screening for people with no symptoms. The package, called Cent Check, costs ₹27,500. It bundles a full-body MRI, a low-dose CT scan, a DEXA bone-density scan, an ECG, an echocardiogram and more than 100 biomarkers. The company says it screens for over 300 conditions across cancer, cardiac, neurological and metabolic disease, using a proprietary CCNM protocol.
It operates centres in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi NCR, and works with partner diagnostic labs. The company was founded in 2025 by Shashank ND, who co-founded Practo and later founded OneFlow Holdings. The other founders are Anshul Khandelwal, a former chief marketing officer at Ola Electric, and Arpit Garg, a former product head at Lenskart.
How Fast Did the Funding Come?
The Series A follows a $5 million seed round raised earlier in 2026 from OneFlow Holdings and South Park Commons. That makes $20 million in total disclosed funding for a company founded in 2025, and the new round triples the seed in a matter of months.
Cent has not disclosed revenue or valuation. The only traction figure on record is volume. The company says it has screened 10,000 people over the past year, which at the list price implies gross billings of about ₹275 crore only if every customer paid full price for the flagship package. That is an upper bound, not a revenue estimate, since discounts, partner-lab pricing and cheaper tiers are not public.
What Do the Screening Results Show?
According to the company, one in four people screened had a finding that needed attention, and one in 40 needed an immediate doctor consultation. Those figures are self-reported and carry the usual caveat in whole-body imaging. A high rate of findings can mean early detection works. It can also mean a high rate of incidental findings that lead to follow-up tests and anxiety without changing outcomes.
That tension defines the category. Many clinicians question whether broad screening of healthy adults reduces mortality, and Cent has not published outcome data. Its stated goal is to save one million lives through early detection by 2035, a target that depends on evidence the company has yet to show.
Why Did Cent Buy Medsee?
Cent bought Medsee because reporting is the bottleneck in whole-body imaging. A single full-body MRI and CT session produces large image sets that a qualified radiologist must read, and radiologist time does not scale at the pace of scan volume. Medsee's software drafts structured reports and flags findings for radiologist review, which Cent says will make reporting faster and more consistent.
This reads as a strategic purchase of a workflow tool, not an acquihire. Cent keeps a radiologist in the loop, so the software cuts reading time instead of replacing the reader. Price and structure were not disclosed. Cent's stated aim is to bring reporting in-house as it moves toward its target of 10 million scans by 2035, up from 10,000 today, a thousandfold increase.
What Does the Round Say About Investor Appetite?
The round shows investors will back a scan-heavy, capital-intensive consumer health model at an early stage. MRI and CT machines cost far more than software, so hardware spending sits at the centre of Cent's plan. Blume Ventures and South Park Commons are backing a founding team with prior exits and operating records in Indian consumer and health technology, which likely mattered as much as the early metrics.
Risks are specific. Unit economics depend on machine utilisation and on the share of customers who pay ₹27,500 out of pocket. Regulators and medical bodies may also scrutinise screening claims for asymptomatic people as the category grows.
Outlook
Cent now has $20 million in disclosed funding, 10,000 completed scans, three metro markets and an in-house reporting tool through Medsee. The next test is whether it can lift scan volume sharply while publishing clinical evidence that its findings improve patient outcomes. Valuation, revenue and Medsee deal terms remain undisclosed, so the market has little to judge it on beyond scan counts and the founders' track record.
