After Zomato, Deepinder Goyal returns with a $54 million brain monitoring bet

Weeks after stepping down as CEO of food delivery company Zomato and its parent company Eternal, Indian entrepreneur Deepinder Goyal has returned with a $54 million raise for wearables startup Temple, part of what the 43-year-old previously described as a shift toward “high-risk exploration and experimentation.”

Temple raised money in a friends and family round from founding friends and early backers of Zomato, at a post-money valuation of about $190 million, Goyal said Friday in a post on X. He said more than 30 employees participated in the same evaluation.

Goyal stepped down as CEO of Zomato and its parent company Eternal in January, handing over the position to Albinder Dhindsa, who leads the express commerce unit Blinkit. The move represents a major shift for Goyal after nearly two decades at the helm of the food delivery company he co-founded in 2008.

Temple is one of the clearest expressions yet of this shift. The startup is focused on building a high-performance wearable for elite athletes, an area Goyal described as ripe for deeper technological innovation.

During a January conversation with podcast host Raj Chamani, Goyal described the Temple wearable as a sensor designed to sit on the wearer’s temple and continuously track cerebral blood flow.

In a separate post on X earlier Friday, he said Temple aims to build what he called “the ultimate wearable for elite performance athletes,” claiming that the device will measure metrics that current wearables cannot. He also outlined an expanded hiring push that includes embedded systems, computational neuroscience, and brain-computer interface engineering.

The startup is entering the crowded, well-financed wearables market, where companies like Whoop, Oura and Garmin have spent years improving devices that track sleep, recovery and athletic performance. Whether Temple is able to meaningfully differentiate his technology remains an open question.

The push into Temple is part of a broader shift in Goyal’s investment focus. In October 2025, he said he committed $25 million of his own capital to another new venture, Continue Research, which explores ways to extend human lifespan. He is also a co-founder of aerospace startup LAT Aerospace, which recently expanded into defense technology with the early-stage acquisition of Sharang Shakti.

Goyal built his reputation at Zomato, which he co-founded with Pankaj Chaddah and spent nearly two decades building one of India’s largest food delivery platforms before stepping down as CEO earlier this year.

Chadha exited the company in 2018, as Zomato continued to strengthen its position through acquisitions, including buying Uber Eats’ business in India in 2020 and grocery delivery platform Blinkit – then known as Grofers – for $568 million in 2022.

Before Temple, Goyal also backed health and fitness startups, including Ultrahuman, an India-based wearables maker that competes with the Oura smart ring, underscoring his growing focus on performance and health technology.

Goyal declined to comment further on Temple.