Startup Deep Dive : Forus Health — the eye-screening device that took twelve years to turn a profit

Forus Health’s 3nethra device can screen a patient for four of the leading causes of blindness — cataract, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and corneal disease — in under five minutes, without dilating the pupil, at a fraction of the ₹25–30 lakh that imported fundus cameras cost when the company started. It took twelve years for that idea to turn its first profit: ₹18.71 lakh, in the year to March 2022.

In between sat a case study literally taught at business school: a company that, three years after its first device left the factory, had sold only 100 of them, while its venture backers pushed for aggressive scale before cheaper copycats arrived. Forus Health survived that squeeze, and today says its devices have reached more than 5,000 installations across 85-plus countries — but the numbers on its own balance sheet, and the slow shift from selling boxes to selling services, tell a more complicated story than the screening statistics do.

Quick facts

What they do

Forus Health designs and sells portable eye-screening devices, marketed under the 3nethra brand, to hospitals, eye-care chains, government and NGO-run rural health programmes, and — through newer models aimed at consumers and optometrists — directly to patients. The core pitch is that a technician with minimal training, not necessarily an ophthalmologist, can capture retinal and anterior-eye images in under five minutes; those images are then read either on-site or remotely, over the company’s cloud platforms, by an ophthalmologist who may be hundreds of kilometres away. Buyers range from large hospital networks such as Aravind Eye Care, which took delivery of the first commercial 3nethra classic on 1 October 2010, to state-run community health centres and, since 2016, clinics in the United States.

The origin

Neither founder started as a healthcare person. Dr Shyam Vasudeva Rao held a doctorate in real-time computing and had been Director of Technology at Philips Healthcare; K Chandrasekhar, a BITS Pilani graduate, had spent two decades in business development and operations roles at semiconductor and software companies, including Philips. What pulled them toward ophthalmology was a 2009 talk at Philips by Dr G. Natchiar of Aravind Eye Care on preventable blindness, which the founders have said left them asking two questions: who is this product really for, and what is the actual goal.

The answer they arrived at was structural, not medical. India had roughly 12,000 ophthalmologists at the time against more than 600,000 general physicians and health workers, and by the founders’ own account, upward of 80% of blindness cases in the country were preventable if caught early. Rather than build a better ophthalmologist’s tool, they built a device any health worker could operate, paired with cloud connectivity so the scarce resource — a specialist’s judgement — could be applied remotely, at scale, instead of requiring the patient to travel to it. The name Forus is short for “for us[ers],” a nod to that design philosophy. The company was incorporated on 20 January 2010, and the first 3nethra classic went to Aravind Eye Care that October, after roughly a year of prototyping.

The struggle years

The idea worked in demonstrations. It did not, at first, work commercially. A Harvard-style case study on the company, “Forus Health: Crossing the Disruptive Product Chasm,” records that by April 2013 — roughly three years after the first device shipped — Forus had sold just 100 units of 3nethra worldwide, even as venture investors pushed the CEO to scale distribution fast before lower-cost imitators entered the market. The company’s problem was not the technology; it was that a device built to be sold to ophthalmologists needed the ophthalmology profession itself to accept a machine that bypassed some of what specialists traditionally did. Winning that trust, one hospital and one government programme at a time, took years, not quarters.

The company found ways to keep going: it sold through distributors and direct deals across roughly 25 countries in its early years, layered on Series A and Series B venture funding to fund the sales push, and progressively expanded the product line beyond the original 3nethra classic. But the internal story was not smooth. Co-founder Dr Shyam Vasudeva Rao departed the company by 2016, leaving Chandrasekhar as the public face and eventual CEO of the business he had co-founded. On the financials, the strain persisted far longer than the sales-volume problem: Forus recorded a net loss of ₹1.09 crore in the year to March 2021, more than a decade after incorporation, before the company’s own reported figures show it turning its first profit the following year.

The turning point

The clearest inflection point sits in fiscal year 2021-22. Revenue rose 30% year-on-year to ₹28.11 crore, and the company swung from a ₹1.09 crore loss in FY21 to a ₹18.71 lakh net profit in FY22 — its first profitable year, twelve years after founding, according to figures reported by YourStory in October 2022. The improvement came from the device business finally reaching enough scale and installed base to cover its costs, not from a single large contract or acquisition. It was also the year the company began publicly reframing its future around services and cloud platforms rather than one-time hardware sales, with management telling YourStory it expected revenue to climb roughly five-fold within five years, from about ₹28 crore to a projected ₹168.7 crore by FY27 — a company projection, not an audited outcome, and one this piece treats as a stated target rather than a fact on the ground.

The money behind it

• Series A, 2012-13: approximately $5 million from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India (Forus Health company history).
• Series B, announced 9 January 2014: ₹50 crore (~$8.2 million), led by Asian Healthcare Fund, with existing investors Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India participating; Unitus Capital advised on the transaction (PR Newswire, January 2014). At announcement, the company had 220 device installations across 14 countries and had screened roughly 600,000 eyes.
• Series C, reported 2018-19: additional funding from Asian Healthcare Fund, Accel Partners and TeamFund, per the company’s own history page; the exact amount is not independently confirmed by a second source, so it is omitted here.
• Series D, reported 2020-21: funding from TeamFund, per the company’s own history page; amount undisclosed.
• Total disclosed funding: approximately $18.1 million across six rounds since 2011, according to both Tracxn and CBInsights (accessed September 2026).
• What each backer changed: Accel brought early growth capital and board discipline through the 2012-13 scale-up phase; Asian Healthcare Fund’s 2014 lead brought sector-specific healthcare growth capital aimed explicitly at supply-chain and sales-network scale-up, per CEO K Chandrasekhar’s comments at the time; IDG Ventures India (now Chiratae Ventures) stayed on as a repeat participant across multiple rounds.

How it makes money

Forus Health’s revenue has historically come overwhelmingly from selling hardware.

• Device sales: one-time revenue from selling 3nethra units — spanning the classic, neo (for premature-infant retinopathy screening), flora, aberro, specto and pico variants — to hospitals, health programmes and, more recently, individual optometry practices and consumers.
• Services and platforms: recurring or subscription-style revenue from cloud reading and telemedicine platforms (FH-TeleCare, FH-TeleEye, FH-POISE) that connect a screening site to a remote ophthalmologist. As of the October 2022 YourStory report, this line contributed only about 10% of total business, with management aiming to grow it because recurring revenue is viewed as more investor-friendly than one-time device sales.
• Where the margin sits: the company has said its earlier cost advantage came from using CMOS image sensors and locally sourced components instead of costlier CCD sensors used by imported competitors, cutting device cost to a fraction of the ₹25–30 lakh price of the machines it replaced (Founding Fuel, February 2026).
• The part people get wrong: a device that screens for free or near-free in a government programme is not the same business as a device sold at a margin to a private hospital chain — Forus operates in both markets simultaneously, and its published financials do not break out the split between subsidised/programme sales and commercial sales.

The numbers

• Revenue grew 30% YoY in FY22 (YourStory) and, on the FY23 and FY25 figures above, has kept growing, though no consistent public filing for FY24 could be located.
• FY23 net profit is reported inconsistently: The Company Check’s filing-derived figure implies about ₹7.6 crore, while Tofler’s disclosed year-on-year net-profit growth rate of 255.5% applied to FY22’s ₹18.71 lakh base implies a much smaller figure, around ₹0.66 crore. The two do not reconcile; both are named here rather than one being picked.
• Company management’s own projection, stated to YourStory in October 2022, was for revenue to reach ₹168.7 crore by FY27 — a five-fold increase over five years — driven by the planned shift toward services and US expansion. That is a target, not a reported result.

Where the money comes from

• By revenue type (2022): about 90% device sales versus roughly 10% services and platforms, per YourStory, October 2022 — a split the company has said it wants to reverse over time.
• By India programme scale (company-stated, forushealth.com, accessed September 2026): more than 1,000 cameras installed across India; 3.5 million eye screenings delivered through Andhra Pradesh community health centres over four years in partnership with Apollo Telehealth; a further 1 million screenings at corporate and vision-centre deployments.
• By global footprint (company-stated, forushealth.com, accessed September 2026): more than 5,000 device installations across 85-plus countries, and more than 25 million eyes screened globally to date.
• By an earlier, dated snapshot: at the time of its Series B announcement in January 2014, the company had 220 installations across 14 countries and had screened about 600,000 eyes — illustrating how much of its current scale has been built in the decade since.
• The surprise: despite a global installed base spanning 85-plus countries, the business is still disproportionately reliant on the lower-margin device-sale line rather than the recurring cloud/services revenue it has spent years trying to grow.

The risks

• Dependence on price-sensitive, programme-driven buyers: a meaningful share of Forus’s installed base sits inside government and NGO-funded rural screening programmes (such as the Andhra Pradesh community health centre deployment with Apollo Telehealth), which are subject to public health budget cycles and tender-based procurement rather than steady commercial demand.
• Slow, still-incomplete business-model shift: management told YourStory in October 2022 that services and platforms made up only about 10% of revenue, with a stated ambition to grow that share sharply; the company’s own five-fold FY27 revenue target depends on that shift succeeding, and as of the most recent revenue figure available (₹52.8 crore, FY25, Tofler), there is no public confirmation of how far the mix has actually moved.
• Competitive and regulatory exposure in new markets: Forus entered the US market as early as 2016 but needs product-specific US FDA 510(k) clearance for each device variant it sells there — its 3nethra neo HD FA received clearance only in August 2025 — while competing against both established Western device makers and domestic Indian rivals such as Remidio in the broader affordable-retinal-imaging category.

The takeaway

Forus Health’s story is not really about a clever device; cheap, portable fundus cameras were always going to arrive once the sensor economics allowed it. The transferable lesson is about what “product-market fit” costs when the market is a licensed profession, not a consumer. Selling a machine that visibly changes how ophthalmologists work required Forus to spend three years selling only 100 units while investors wanted speed, and then another decade proving the model could support itself financially, before it ever turned its first rupee of profit. Founders building for a similarly gatekept market — where the buyer must trust the product enough to change how they practise, not just enough to try it once — should expect the adoption curve, not the product build, to be the slower and harder part of the business.

Frequently asked questions

What does Forus Health make?

Forus Health makes 3nethra, a family of portable, non-mydriatic eye-screening devices that can detect cataract, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and corneal disease in under five minutes, along with cloud-based platforms that let a remote ophthalmologist read the images.

Who founded Forus Health and when?

Dr Shyam Vasudeva Rao and K Chandrasekhar, both former Philips employees, founded Forus Health on 20 January 2010 in Bengaluru. Dr Vasudeva Rao left the company by 2016, and Chandrasekhar continues as CEO and Managing Director.

Is Forus Health profitable?

It reported its first net profit, ₹18.71 lakh, in the year to March 2022, after a ₹1.09 crore loss the year before, per YourStory. Later years’ precise net profit figures are not consistently reported across public sources; the company’s own figures indicate continued revenue growth to ₹52.8 crore by FY25.

How much funding has Forus Health raised, and who backs it?

Forus has raised approximately $18.1 million across six rounds since 2011, according to Tracxn and CBInsights, from investors including Accel, Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India), Asian Healthcare Fund and TeamFund. Its valuation is not officially disclosed; one data aggregator estimates it at roughly $48 million as of January 2020.

Is Forus Health a listed company?

No. Forus Health Private Limited remains privately held, with no IPO announced as of September 2026.

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• Forus Health, “About Us,” forushealth.com, accessed September 2026.
• Forus Health, “History & Milestones,” forushealth.com, accessed September 2026.
• PR Newswire, “Forus Health Raises Rs 50 Crore ($8.2 Million) in Series B Funding Led by Asian Healthcare Fund,” January 2014.
• YourStory, “Forus eyes services, US for growth spurt after turning a profit selling devices,” October 2022.
• Founding Fuel, “Two questions that led to an innovative device to prevent blindness,” February 2026.
• The Better India, “Innovator’s Low-Cost Device Prevents Blindness in Millions, Used in 45 Countries,” August 2021.
• Case study “Forus Health: Crossing the Disruptive Product Chasm” (Indian School of Business / Harvard Business Publishing, W14725), referencing April 2013 sales data.
• Tracxn, “Forus Health — Company Profile,” accessed September 2026.
• CBInsights, “Forus Health — Financials,” accessed September 2026.
• The Company Check, “Forus Health — Company Profile,” accessed September 2026.
• Tofler, “Forus Health Private Limited — Financials,” accessed September 2026.
• Business Standard / IANS, “Forus Health forays into US market with 3nethra classic,” November 2016.
• U.S. FDA 510(k) database, clearance record K243600 for 3nethra neo HD FA, August 2025.

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