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Indian billionaire Deepinder Goyal, the founder of food delivery app Zomato, is facing a public fight with doctors over Temple, a $900 wearable he says tracks blood flow to the brain, as orders open for a device that has not been clinically validated.
Temple is a small sensor worn on the forehead near the temple that tracks signals linked to cerebral blood flow. Pre-orders opened on Nov. 1 at ₹85,000 ($893), with units made to order and shipments due to start in early 2027. Top Indian athletes have appeared with the device.
Goyal has put about $20 million of his own money into Temple, which has spent $30 million on development. In February, the startup raised $54 million in a seed round led by Goyal at a post-money valuation of about $190 million. Contract manufacturers Zetwerk and Ethereal Machines are helping to scale up production.
Doctors push back
Critics say the device cannot do what it claims. Cyriac Abby Philips, a hepatologist with a large social media following, called it "the biggest health scam and wellness fraud in India" and said it can detect only blood rushing to the face. Zubin Sharma, a gastroenterologist in Gurugram, said blood reaches the brain through arteries in the neck and the back of the head, not the temple.
Others have pointed out that the studies on Temple's website were funded and run by the company and have not been peer reviewed.
Goyal has rejected the criticism. In a post addressed to "Concerned Indian Doctors," he said the company's research is sound and that "a scam that pays nothing is not a scam anyone would run," noting that a few thousand units would recover only a small part of what he has spent.
He has also said Temple will publish pre-prints before peer-reviewed papers and expects independent studies once the device is in wide use. "Temple is a fitness tracker, and wellness device. We are not a medical device," he wrote, conceding that it has not been clinically validated.
From food delivery to longevity
Goyal, 43, co-founded Zomato in 2008 as a restaurant listings site and built it into one of India's largest consumer internet companies, now held under Eternal Ltd. He stepped down as Eternal's chief executive to focus on Temple and Continue Research, his personal longevity research venture. "This is not about money. I have enough of it to last for generations," he said.
Forbes counts him among India's billionaires, with a fortune tied mainly to his stake in Eternal.
Figures were converted at ₹95.2 to the dollar.
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