Can Cent’s One-Scan Protocol Outdo India’s Legacy Preventive Healthcare Players?

“May you live a hundred years.”

It’s a common refrain one hears on their birthday. Most treat it as a heartfelt wish rather than a realistic expectation. No one really expects to live till a hundred.

But three founders decided to build a company around making this wish a little more achievable, even if not many might believe it possible. 

That idea is embedded in the name itself. Cent (short for century, as the startup says) is betting that living longer shouldn’t be left to chance, genetics, or a late-stage diagnosis. Instead, it should begin with catching diseases before they have a chance to take hold.

For a country that prides itself on producing some of the world’s largest numbers of doctors and being the birthplace of ayurveda, India’s relationship with preventive healthcare remains oddly awkward.

Whether it’s avoiding the anxiety of a health report with a few red flags or simply not knowing enough about preventive care, most Indians encounter a diagnostic centre only after something has already gone wrong like chest pain, unexplained bumps and lump or a dizzy spell.

Even full-body checkups are largely sold through packages named after precious metals — gold, platinum, diamond. While they promise comprehensive health assessments, they are often positioned towards measuring what has already happened in a patient’s body rather than identifying what could happen next.

This is where Bengaluru-based Cent positions itself.

Founded in January 2025 by Practo cofounder Shashank ND, former Ola CMO Anshul Khandelwal, and former Lenskart product head Arpit Garg, Cent is a D2C preventive healthcare platform that operates its own diagnostic centres.

Out of the three cofounders at Cent, Shashank brings the deepest experience in India’s healthtech ecosystem. He is also the founder and CEO of IPO-bound healthtech startup Practo. But Practo does not have any ownership in Cent, as per Khandelwal. 

The startup offers a holistic full-body diagnostic protocol centred on early detection of cardiac disease, cancer, neurological disorders, and metabolic conditions, the four categories that the founders believe account for the overwhelming majority of preventable deaths.

“More than 75% of premature deaths in India, and actually globally as well, come down to these four things,” cofounder and chief business officer Khandelwal told Inc42, explaining the thinking behind Cent’s core protocol.

He added: “We started by exploring longevity, including supplements and other interventions. But we realised the bigger problem wasn’t living longer—it was that people were dying from life-threatening conditions like cancer and heart disease because they weren’t being detected early enough. That’s why we shifted our focus from longevity to clinical prevention.”

Thus far, the startup has raised seed funding from OneFlow Holdings, the family office of Shashank ND, and South Park Commons. While Cent did not disclose the funding amount, sources told Inc42 that the company raised around $5 Mn earlier this year. It currently has three centres in Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, and Mumbai, each capable of handling up to 3,000 scans a month. 

But Cent isn’t building a diagnostics centre, but working towards establishing a comprehensive dedicated preventive health infrastructure. How exactly is it building it? 

Inside Cent’s Single Protocol For Preventive Healthcare

Cent’s flagship offering is built around a full-body MRI — a scan the founders say takes around 30 minutes, generates 3-4 GB of imaging data per person, and screens for more than 300 conditions across the body, including neurodegenerative and spinal issues.

However, MRI doesn’t cover cardiac assessment well. For this, Cent has included three more tests a part of its protocol— a CT scan of the heart to check for calcification in arteries (which leads to blockages and attacks), an ECG and echocardiogram for the heart’s functional and rhythmic capability, a DEXA scan for metabolic issues, and also a mammogram for women.

At Cent’s centre, a customer goes through this single yet mandatory medical protocol.

Drawing the differentiation, cofounder and chief AI officer Garg established that the majority of preventive health checkups in India are largely insufficient and have very limited coverage of the body, primarily because most of them are blood-based.

The process begins with users booking an appointment through Cent’s website, followed by an at-home blood sample collection. They then visit a clinic at a scheduled time to undergo the remaining diagnostic tests. While Cent employs its doctors in-house, it partners with third-party laboratories for blood sample collection and testing.

“Most people get a blood test done and call it a full-body test, or they take a hospital “package” which is really just blood work plus some basic imaging like ECG, ultrasound or a DMT scan, branded as full-body. The actual coverage of the body in these packages is somewhere around 20-30%. Calling something a full-body checkup when it doesn’t cover 80-90% of the body is almost a crime,” cofounder Garg added. 

Unlike other labs, where customers can remove or add tests, Cent offers a single, fixed test per year, priced at ₹27,500. “If customers choose not to do one of the component scans, we won’t publish a report at all,” Khandelwal added. 

Cent’s proprietary AI system then correlates results across modalities to give a so-called clinical health score. It gives an organ-by-organ risk rating with a prioritised list of actions for the user. Consumers also get access to an AI companion to query their medical reports, alongside a mandatory doctor consultation within 48 hours of the test.

Khandelwal further said a conventional full-body MRI typically takes around three hours and costs between ₹50,000 and ₹60,000, making it impractical for preventive screening. However, advances in AI have enabled Cent to reduce scan time to about 30 minutes, significantly improving machine utilisation, lowering costs and making comprehensive MRI-based screening more accessible. 

On the hardware side, Cent has a deep technology and strategic partnership with Siemens for its imaging equipment — CT, mammography, DEXA and MRI machines — including joint R&D aimed at cutting scan times and improving accuracy. No patents have been filed yet, though the company says a few are in process.

How Cent Is Planning The Roadmap Ahead

On traction, Cent counts its real commercial start from around October 2025, when the company began its commercial operations after running scans on friends and family for a few months. 

The company currently claims to have done around 7,000 scans till date, with the monthly scan count now reaching 3,000. 

The founders also shared that around 25% of the total customers are flagged with something “major” requiring a lifestyle change or medication, and about 3% turn up something critical requiring immediate medical attention. 

On future plans, the single biggest cost line for Cent right now is capex tied to opening 20-25 new centres over the next six to nine months, initially concentrated across India’s top seven cities including Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata, before expanding into a further 15 cities. 

Since this medical protocol is required not more than once a year, customer retention stands as a significant question for Cent. Speaking about this, Khandelwal laid out a few plans. 

To keep the customer flow going, the startup is going to introduce Cent membership. With this, the customers who undergo the initial scan for ₹27,500 receive any follow-up scans recommended during the year at no additional cost. The package also includes ongoing access to Cent’s doctors and longevity experts for consultations and guidance based on their health reports. 

Demographically, Cent is targeting middle-aged customers, who earn roughly ₹15-20 Lakh annually. About 80% are married, with a 65:35 split between men and women.

“These are 45-year-olds who have come to terms with mortality. A lot of people who come to us are the ones who come because their daughter or son wants them to do it,” he added.

On a broader scale players like Prisytn Care, Superhealth, Thyrocare, among others, also offer preventive healthcare tests at their centres, while legacy players can tap deep networks and partnerships with healthcare institutions.

However, Cent’s model with one single preventive healthcare service is different from the pre-existing solutions in the market. Globally, full-body-MRI brands like Prenuvo or Function Health remain the closest to Cent’s offerings.

Further speaking on the competitive landscape, the cofounders said that a standalone full-body MRI, done the traditional way, would take three hours and cost ₹50,000-60,000 on its own. This cost usually excludes the CT, ECG, echo and DEXA tests, which Cent bundles in. 

Speaking about the cost differentiation from the existing products in the market, Cent positions itself as a much affordable solution with MRI, CT, blood diagnostics and genetics into a single integrated protocol. 

As per the startup, comprehensive whole-body screening programmes offering a similar range of diagnostics can cost upwards of ₹2 Lakh in the international markets, while advanced blood diagnostic packages alone are typically priced at ₹30,000 or more, excluding advanced imaging tests.  

Cent’s founders are explicit that their core buyer isn’t longevity enthusiasts or biohackers chasing optimisation. As per Khandelwal, roughly 80-90% of customers are nearing the age of 45. 

While biohacking and longevity are movements that may require years to mature fully in the Indian context, Cent is relying on AI to fill the gap without introducing something completely novel for the typical Indian user. 

But competition is stiff in this space and customers typically go for legacy players in the healthcare space over new names. So a lot will depend on how well Cent is able to convey its proposition, without making it all about affordability, and whether it can build trust among its core audience as a new healthcare brand.

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