Velmenni builds light-based wireless communication systems for telecom, enterprise, and defense networks. The New Delhi startup has raised ₹30 Cr in a pre-Series A round led by pi Ventures, with MountTech Growth Fund – Kavachh and Apekso joining in, as it tries to turn Velmenni Li-Fi from a deeptech promise into a bigger commercial business. It’s chasing a clear problem: a lot of last-mile and backhaul links are still too slow, too expensive, or too awkward to build with fiber or radio. Founded in 2014 by Deepak Solanki, Velmenni is betting that optical wireless links can fix that in places where conventional telecom infrastructure struggles.
What does Velmenni Li-Fi actually do?
At the product level, Velmenni sells optical wireless connectivity. Indoors, its Li-Fi setup takes data from a router over PoE or Ethernet and pushes that data to a Li-Fi access point attached to LED lighting. It then encodes and modulates the signal through light. A dongle connected to the user device decodes that signal and handles the uplink using near-infrared LEDs, which makes the connection bidirectional rather than just a one-way demo.
That matters. This isn’t just “internet through a bulb” marketing. Velmenni’s indoor system is built around specific enterprise features: up to 1 Gbps speeds and latency in the 1–3 ms range. It also offers plug-and-play hardware and line-of-sight security that keeps light-based traffic from leaking through walls the way radio can. The company frames Li-Fi as interference-free for places where electromagnetic noise is a real operational headache.
Outdoors, the company goes after a different job. Its light communication backhaul product is designed for point-to-point or point-to-multipoint links, with 1 Gbps throughput at 1 km and latency around 1–2 ms. It uses pole-mounted equipment meant to be deployed faster than trenching cable. That makes it more like telecom infrastructure than a niche lighting add-on.
The customer workflow is pretty straightforward. Instead of digging for fiber or fighting for more spectrum, a telecom operator, factory, campus, harbor, or defense site can mount optical gear where it needs the link and align it. Then it can bring bandwidth online with less civil work. That’s why Velmenni talks about both Li-Fi and FSO rather than treating them as the same thing—they solve different connection problems inside the same optical wireless stack.
Who built Velmenni Li-Fi and what has it shipped?
The founding story and founder fit
Velmenni was founded in 2014, and Solanki still leads it as founder and CEO. His background is in electronics and communication engineering, and he’d been focused on Li-Fi research before the company’s commercial push took shape. He became interested in Li-Fi in 2011, then pushed the idea from an R&D effort into a product company. He also worked with the Airbus accelerator, which gave the startup early validation outside India.
There’s also a business-side counterpart here. Velmenni lists Ujjwal Minocha as cofounder and COO, running business, strategy, sales, and marketing. His background is less lab-heavy and more commercial. That matters because this kind of company doesn’t win on patents alone—it wins when someone can actually sell hard tech into long procurement cycles.
The early traction is unusually concrete
Here’s where Velmenni gets more interesting than a lot of optical wireless startups. It has already done more than 50 deployments across India, Southeast Asia, and with tier I mobile network operators in the US. One of the biggest proof points is a multi-million-dollar Indian defense contract to deploy FSO systems across Indian submarines for harbor connectivity. Another is a private 5G network installed at GMR’s thermal power plant in Odisha, where the company maintained 99.999% availability for more than 18 months in tropical conditions.
Those aren’t soft signals. Neither is the compliance story. Velmenni has secured CE certification in Europe and is waiting for FCC clearance in the US. It has also built an international patent portfolio backed by grants from the Department of Telecommunications and India’s defense ministry.
The round, the rivals, and where Velmenni sits
The new round brings in ₹30 Cr, or about $3.3 Mn, at the pre-Series A stage. pi Ventures led it. MountTech Growth Fund – Kavachh and Apekso also participated. Velmenni plans to use the money to commercialize its FSO and Li-Fi telecom products. It also plans to build more solutions for defense and enterprise buyers and push into more international markets. For pi Ventures, which has explicitly positioned Fund II around seed-to-Series A deeptech bets, the fit is obvious.
Competition is real, even if this market is still early. Trackers place Velmenni in a global field that includes pureLiFi, Oledcomm, VLNComm, Signify, Lucibel, and LiFiComm. But most of the incumbent alternatives Velmenni is really selling against aren’t other Li-Fi startups. They’re fiber trenching, licensed spectrum, and millimeter-wave links. Velmenni’s pitch is that light-based backhaul can be cheaper and faster to deploy in places where those options are messy, slow, or overkill.
Solanki put the differentiation plainly: Velmenni offers an “all-weather tested, 100% Made in India design” with “10Gbps+ seamless connectivity” across 1–25 km. That’s ambitious. But it also explains why investors are backing it—the company isn’t just selling a lab demo. It’s selling a hardware stack with telecom and defense use cases attached.
Why does this Velmenni funding round matter?
This round matters because it isn’t being framed as pure R&D money. Velmenni is using it to commercialize products that already exist, not to begin from scratch. That usually means manufacturing, deployment support, sales capacity, and product hardening are now just as important as the underlying optics.
For customers, that’s a big shift. A telecom buyer or defense user doesn’t care that a system worked once in a pilot. They care whether it can be installed repeatedly and serviced quickly. They also care whether it can be procured without drama. Velmenni now has the kind of capital that can help bridge that ugly middle stage between “ impressive technology”' and “'reliable vendor".
For the category, this is a useful signal. Optical wireless has been talked about for years as a secure, high-capacity alternative to RF-heavy networks. The hard part was always commercial adoption. A funded company with real deployments, defense validation, and an enterprise roadmap has a better shot at pushing the category out of the prototype bucket.
How big is the Li-Fi and optical wireless market?
The market tailwind is substantial. Grand View Research projects the global light fidelity market will reach $7.76 Bn by 2030, growing at a 51.0% CAGR from 2023 to 2030. The same forecast flags aerospace and defense as a meaningful end-use segment. It also expects Asia Pacific to be one of the fastest-growing regions.
India gives that story a local backbone. Since 5G launched in 2022, the country has built the world’s second-largest 5G user base, with 40 Cr subscribers by early 2026 and 4.69 lakh base stations. That doesn’t automatically make Li-Fi mainstream. But it does create more pressure for dense, fast, secure backhaul and last-mile links in places where radio isn’t ideal.
The competitive set also shows this is now a real market, not a science fair project. Grand View’s market data lists pureLiFi, Oledcomm, VLNComm, Signify, and Velmenni among notable players, while its regional outlook expects Asia Pacific light fidelity revenue to reach about $1.38 Bn by 2030. Behind this round is a broader shift: more security-sensitive environments and more connected industrial sites. There’s also more willingness to use optical wireless where line-of-sight constraints are acceptable.
Will Velmenni Li-Fi break out from here?
Velmenni has something a lot of deeptech startups never get—deployment history in actual operating environments, not just decks and pilots. That gives it credibility. But credibility isn’t scale.
What matters next for Velmenni Li-Fi is whether those early submarine, industrial, and telecom wins turn into repeatable multi-site rollouts.
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FAQ
What funding did Velmenni raise?
Velmenni raised ₹30 Cr, or about $3.3 Mn, in a pre-Series A round. pi Ventures led the investment, and MountTech Growth Fund – Kavachh plus Apekso also participated. The company plans to use the capital to commercialize its FSO and Li-Fi telecom products and expand with defense and enterprise customers.
How does Velmenni’s Li-Fi technology work?
It works by moving data through light instead of radio. Velmenni’s indoor setup sends router data over Ethernet to a Li-Fi access point attached to LEDs. A dongle on the device decodes the light signal and handles the uplink through near-infrared LEDs, while its outdoor systems use optical links for backhaul.
Who founded Velmenni?
Deepak Solanki founded Velmenni in 2014 and serves as CEO. He comes from an electronics and communication engineering background and had been working on Li-Fi for years before the company scaled. Velmenni also lists Ujjwal Minocha as cofounder and COO, leading the commercial side.
Is Velmenni a Li-Fi company or a telecom infrastructure startup?
It’s both. Velmenni sits in the Li-Fi and optical wireless category, but the business it’s building looks a lot like telecom infrastructure for high-speed backhaul, last-mile connectivity, private 5G environments, and secure defense networks.
