What is Temple? Inside Deepinder Goyal’s ambitious brain-health wearable

On January 21, Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato, announced a significant shift in his career by stepping down as CEO of Eternal to assume a vice chairman role. He described this transition as a move toward embracing riskier ventures. Goyal's new position will allow him to explore innovative ideas that involve substantial exploration and experimentation, sparking intrigue within India's tech and startup communities. At the heart of this discussion lies Temple, a groundbreaking research-grade wearable device that Goyal has personally invested over $25 million (approximately ₹225 crore) into developing. The unveiling of Temple generated considerable excitement after Goyal showcased the device during an appearance on entrepreneur Raj Shamani’s well-known YouTube program, Figuring Out. Temple is designed to monitor brain health by tracking cerebral blood flow (CBF) in real time, a critical indicator of how well blood circulates in the brain. This data could provide valuable insights into aging, cognitive functions, and overall neurological performance. Goyal’s work on this device is closely aligned with what he calls the Gravity Ageing Hypothesis, which suggests that gravity's effect on blood flow contributes to biological aging and cognitive decline over time. The aim of Temple is to continuously measure these circulation patterns, potentially paving the way for new preventive measures in brain health monitoring. However, as the project's visibility increases, it has also faced skepticism from medical professionals and researchers concerned about the absence of published clinical validation supporting its scientific claims. In response to these concerns, Goyal emphasized the project's early stage, stating on X, “We haven’t made any public commercial announcements about Temple yet. We haven’t released any official device benchmarking data.” He reassured that research is ongoing and that it would be several months before any public release of the wearable could be considered.