The Scale With a Second Opinion
Somewhere in a San Bruno office, there is a scale that doesn't weigh you. It photographs your feet, transmits the images over a HIPAA-compliant network, and routes them to a licensed nurse who flags anything that looks like it might become catastrophic. That device - the Empo Footprint - is the reason Anuj Khandelwal left a career building Amazon's delivery drones to become a medical device founder.
The pivot is less strange than it sounds. Khandelwal spent his undergraduate years at MIT studying mechanical engineering with concentrations in electrical engineering and computer science. He worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, interned at Amazon Prime Air, graduated in 2017, spent a year as a hardware development engineer at Amazon, then turned around and went back to school - this time at Stanford, for a master's degree specifically in medical devices. His parents are both physicians. He'd been circling this problem for years.
Between Stanford semesters, he worked at Auris Health on robotic micro-surgical devices. By 2020, he had co-founded Empo Health with classmate Eric Dahlseng - a fellow MIT engineer who is now the company's Chief Product Officer.
Making early detection as easy as stepping on a scale.
- Anuj Khandelwal, CEO of Empo HealthThe Problem Is Absurdly Large
More than 20 million Americans live with diabetic neuropathy - nerve damage so complete that they can't feel injuries forming on their feet. A blister goes unnoticed. A callus becomes an ulcer. An ulcer, if missed long enough, becomes a reason to amputate. The United States performs more than 100,000 diabetes-related lower limb amputations every year. The healthcare system spends up to $80 billion annually on diabetic foot ulcers alone.
The treatment for all of this is fundamentally: look at the feet more often. The problem is that most diabetic patients see a podiatrist or care provider only a few times a year. The feet change daily. The gap between clinic visits is where the damage accumulates.
A diabetic patient might see a podiatrist four times a year. But a foot ulcer can progress from early irritation to surgical emergency in 72 hours. The math of quarterly check-ups doesn't protect against daily risk.
Khandelwal's solution is to collapse that gap. Empo Footprint sits in the patient's bathroom. Step on it once a day - the way you already do with a regular scale. The device captures full-color, high-resolution images of the soles of both feet. Those images are automatically transmitted to Empo's care platform. Licensed nurses review them. The care team sees anything unusual before the patient is aware there's a problem.
A Device That Looks Like a Bathroom Scale on Purpose
The design decision is not accidental. Khandelwal has been consistent about his approach to patient-facing medical technology: if a device requires patients to change their behavior significantly, they won't use it consistently. The Empo Footprint asks for nothing more than stepping on something, which patients already do every morning.
The pilot data backed him up. Near-daily patient engagement. Early indications of ulcer formation detected in 50% of participating patients - findings that validated years of engineering and unlocked the company's commercial strategy. The simplicity of the interaction is precisely the point: it is easier to build complex technology that looks simple than to ask patients to accommodate complexity.
Empo Health: The System at a Glance
$7M and a Category to Own
In June 2025, Empo Health announced its Series A: $7 million led by Story Ventures, with participation from VTC Ventures, Ulu Ventures, SeaX Ventures, Arben Ventures, and Gaingels. Alongside the funding announcement came the commercial launch of the full system - the moment that transformed Empo from a clinical-stage company to a market-facing one.
The round added three board members: Brian Yormak, Managing Partner at Story Ventures; Steve Reale, Partner and CFO at Ulu Ventures; and Partha Ray, who previously held director-level positions at Dexcom and Johnson & Johnson. The combination of early-stage venture muscle and deep medtech operating experience reflects where the company is headed - not just validating the technology, but scaling it into a commercial category leader.
Khandelwal's stated ambition extends beyond diabetic foot care. He has described Empo's long-term vision as a platform for in-home health monitoring across chronic conditions - a suite of products that bring clinical-grade visibility into the home for the populations least likely to receive it consistently in clinic settings.
Patients should have real-time access to their health data, fostering greater comfort and agency in managing their conditions.
- Anuj KhandelwalThe Background That Makes This Make Sense
Khandelwal's parents are both physicians. Growing up around clinical practice gave him a view of medicine that most hardware engineers never get: the difference between what a treatment can do and what it actually does when a patient has to do it daily, alone, at home, without supervision. The compliance gap is where chronic disease wins. Building around it is his thesis.
His path through Amazon's drone program brought precision manufacturing and mechatronics expertise. His internship at Auris Health - working on robotic micro-surgical devices - brought him into direct contact with what FDA-cleared, high-stakes hardware development requires. The Empo Footprint is not a consumer gadget running a health app. It is a medical device that happens to look like a consumer product, and the distinction matters for everything from the regulatory strategy to the bill of materials.
In July 2025, the company announced a partnership with Interlynk to handle FDA cybersecurity compliance - specifically, generating and managing machine-readable SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials) and implementing real-time vulnerability monitoring for open-source and third-party software components. For a device that transmits patient health data wirelessly to a cloud-connected care platform, the security architecture is not an afterthought. It is part of the product.
MIT mechanical engineering graduate. Amazon drone hardware engineer. Stanford medical device master's candidate. Auris Health robotics intern. Co-founder at 26. The resume reads like a deliberate engineering of a specific kind of founder - one who can build the hardware, navigate the regulatory landscape, and convince a clinical audience that a bathroom scale is a medical device.
Education Built for This
The Career Timeline
What He's Built
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Co-founded Empo Health in 2020; grew to 29 employees in under five years
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Built and FDA-listed the Empo Footprint - an in-home high-resolution foot imaging scale
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Raised $7.26M total, including $7M Series A from Story Ventures, Ulu Ventures, SeaX, and others
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Achieved near-daily patient engagement in clinical pilot; early ulcer detection in 50% of participants
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Built HIPAA-compliant Empo Remote Health Link - provider-facing care coordination portal
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Manufacturing entire product line in the United States
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Secured FDA cybersecurity compliance partnership with Interlynk (July 2025)