Phone-scan design and central fabrication service for limb-fitting clinics
TL;DR Limbscan lets a prosthetist scan a residual limb with a phone, design the socket or orthosis on screen and order it from a central fabrication unit. Repeat scans track how the limb changes over the months. Limb-fitting clinics and hospital departments pay per device and per seat.
Census 2011 counted 54.36 lakh people with locomotor disabilities in India, but nobody knows how many of them are amputees[1]. WHO estimates that only one in ten people who need assistive products worldwide can get them[2]. And discomfort is the main reason people give up on a prosthesis[3].
Fit is a moving target. After amputation a residual limb loses 17–35% of its volume, and it can swing by up to 11% in a single day[3]. Established users typically go back to the clinic about nine times a year for socket adjustments[3].
In India, plaster casting and hand rectification mean each refit eats hours of a skilled prosthetist's time, and qualified prosthetists are scarce to begin with.
First, the regulatory bit - Limbscan is a design and fabrication tool for custom prostheses and orthoses. It does not diagnose or treat. A registered prosthetist or orthotist makes every clinical decision and signs off each design. Most passive prostheses and orthotic parts are low-risk Class A devices under the Medical Devices Rules 2017[4]. Software that shapes a device usually takes that device's class[5], so confirm with CDSCO how design software is classified.
The prosthetist scans the limb with a phone app, using a reference marker for scale. The cloud tool loads the scan and offers templates, and the clinician tweaks the shape. The order goes to a central unit that prints or mills the socket within days, and each later scan is compared with the last one so the clinic can see volume change before it turns into a sore.
I've changed the seed in two ways. It promised to "solve" fit, but limb volume moves too much for one scan to settle it, so Limbscan tracks fit over time. It also pitched AI-driven design. I found no outcome evidence for that, so the clinician designs and the software assists.
The amputee uses it but a private limb-fitting clinic or hospital department usually pays, because it wants to fit more patients per prosthetist. The biggest suppliers give limbs away - the largest charity limb-maker reports more than 2.5 million people served[6], and the government's ALIMCO supplies aids at scale[7]. So Limbscan sells to clinics and could later serve ALIMCO and NGO camps. There are no published prices for prostheses in India, and CAD vendors don't list theirs either.
A 2024 study found two consumer phone-scanning apps matched a professional scanner closely for limb volume, with errors of 1–3%[3]. In January 2025 CDSCO moved several limb prostheses and socket liners to self-notified Class A[4]. Its final medical device software guidance, reported in July 2026, makes the classification rules for software clearer[5].
The narrowest figure is one research firm's estimate of India's prosthetics market at US$59.6M in 2025 (about ₹577 Cr), growing about 4.3% a year[8]. It's a research estimate with no published method, so don't lean on it too hard. Next door, India's orthopaedic braces and supports market is put at US$210.8M (about ₹2,040 Cr), mostly off-the-shelf products[9]. I found no figure for scan-and-design software in Indian clinics.
One global O&P tech group sells scanners, CAD software and mills to O&P clinics in 85+ countries, but its prices and systems suit bigger labs[10]. One US scanning startup has wound down, which tells you a scanning app alone is a thin business[11]. In India, one startup makes bionic hands and runs a clinic marketplace, and the charity limb-makers hand-fabricate at scale.
The gap is a low-cost, phone-based design and fabrication service for small Indian clinics.
| Difficulty | Hard (56/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1.5–2.8 Cr |
| Time to launch | 12–18 months |
The software and the scanning are doable. The hard part is a fabrication unit that ships consistent sockets on time, and convincing prosthetists to trust a digital design over their own plaster work. Free supply from NGOs and the government also caps what many patients, and clinics, will pay.
Yes, but mostly light ones, because most prostheses are low-risk devices. The people rules matter as much.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI approve a socket. A registered prosthetist signs off every design, and fit gets checked on the patient, not on a screen.
Want to work out the AI layer for Limbscan? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I like this one for a team that pairs a registered prosthetist with a manufacturing engineer and is willing to run a factory, not just an app. If you're a pure software founder then skip it. Before anything else, prove that sockets designed from phone scans fit as well as plaster-cast ones for 20 patients at two clinics, with fewer refit visits.
My estimate is ₹1.5–2.8 Cr, covering the software, a central fabrication unit and the first clinic pilots. The kit breaks it down.
Most prostheses are low-risk Class A devices, so check the CDSCO notice for each product. Every design also needs sign-off from an RCI-registered prosthetist.
Yes, the scan-design-fabricate model travels well. Device and clinician rules change by country, so check with your local regulator.
The free Limbscan validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the device and practitioner-rules checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for clinics and prosthetists, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Limbscan or something close to it? The make-or-break bit is getting prosthetists to trust digital sockets and running fabrication that never slips, and that's the kind of thing I help founders work through. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.