Billionaire Deepinder Goyal raises $54 million for his new wearable startup Temple

Weeks after stepping down as Group CEO of Zomato and its parent Eternal, Deepinder Goyal has returned to the startup arena with a new bet on wearable technology.

Goyal’s latest venture, Temple, has raised $54 million in a friends-and-family round at a post-money valuation of about $190 million.

In a post on X, he said the round drew participation from founder friends and early backers of Zomato who were willing to support the venture irrespective of whether it eventually goes public.

More than 30 Temple employees also invested their personal capital in the round at the same valuation as external investors, without any discount.

According to regulatory filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Temple’s board approved the issuance of 234,799 compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares at an issue price of Rs 21,000 each, aggregating to approximately Rs 493 crore.

The filings show that Goyal is leading the round with an investment of Rs 104.07 crore. Steadview Capital has committed Rs 90.49 crore. Other investors include Peak XV Partners at Rs 54.30 crore, Dharana Fund at Rs 49.77 crore and Aaroh Fund at Rs 18.10 crore.

The round also includes participation from InfoEdge Ventures and Dharana Capital, alongside several angel investors such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, Kunal Shah of CRED, and Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath of Zerodha, as well as current and former Eternal executives including Akshant Goyal, Aditya Mangla, Kunal Swarup, Akriti Chopra and Rahul Ganjoo.

Temple is currently operating in stealth mode. Goyal has described it as a long-term venture that is separate from Zomato’s food delivery and quick commerce businesses.

The startup is hiring across embedded systems, computational neuroscience and brain-computer interface engineering, signalling a push into deep-tech hardware and neurotechnology.