--- url: 'https://qubit.capital/blog/india-seed-weekly-funding-roundup-week-4-march-2026' title: 'India Seed Weekly Funding Roundup (Mar 16-23, 2026): $12.3M Raised Across 3 Deals' author: name: Vaibhav Totuka url: 'https://qubit.capital/blog/author/vaibhav-totuka' date: '2026-03-23T08:46:29+05:30' modified: '2026-03-27T15:13:14+05:30' type: post summary: 'India seed-stage startups raised $12.3M this week. Velmenni lands $3.6M for Li-Fi tech, Mave Health gets $2.1M for neurostimulation, BambooBox raises $6.6M.' categories: - Weekly Funding Roundup image: 'https://qubit.capital/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/featured-india-seed-64538.webp' published: true --- # India Seed Weekly Funding Roundup (Mar 16-23, 2026): $12.3M Raised Across 3 Deals Indian seed-stage startups pulled in $12.3M this week across three deals spanning deeptech, healthtech, and SaaS. The largest check went to BambooBox, which closed $6.6M from Peak XV’s Surge programme for its account-based marketing platform. Meanwhile, Velmenni and Mave Health each raised capital for hardware plays that sit well outside the typical SaaS seed mold. Hardware-first startups attracting seed capital in India signals growing investor comfort with longer development cycles when the moat is real. While early-stage founders secured these rounds, later-stage Indian companies raised significantly more. India’s Series B+ cohort closed $77.0M across three deals the same week, led by green NBFC Ecofy and cross-border commerce platform Assiduus Global. The spread between seed and growth-stage activity points to a funding pipeline that’s filling in across stages, not just clustering at the top. Weekly Funding Roundup MAR 16-23, 2026 $12.3M TOTAL RAISED 3DEALS CLOSED MixedSTAGE $4.1MAVG DEAL SIZE INDIATOP REGION BY STAGE Seed$8.7M71% Pre-Seed$3.6M29% BY SECTOR BambooBoxSaaS / B2B Marketing$6.6M VelmenniDeeptech / Wireless Communication$3.6M Mave HealthHealthtech / Neurotechnology$2.1M Table of Contents - [1. BambooBox Raises $6.6M For Account-Based Marketing](#1-bamboobox-raises-$6-6m-for-account-based-marketing) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision) - [Market Context](#market-context) - [2. Velmenni Raises $3.6M For Li-Fi Wireless Communication](#2-velmenni-raises-$3-6m-for-li-fi-wireless-communication) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-1) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-1) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-1) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-1) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-1) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-1) - [Market Context](#market-context-1) - [3. Mave Health Raises $2.1M For Neurotechnology Mental Health](#3-mave-health-raises-$2-1m-for-neurotechnology-mental-health) [Deal Overview](#deal-overview-2) - [Investor Profile](#investor-profile-2) - [Company and Leadership](#company-and-leadership-2) - [Problem and Opportunity](#problem-and-opportunity-2) - [Product and Technology](#product-and-technology-2) - [Use of Proceeds and Vision](#use-of-proceeds-and-vision-2) - [Market Context](#market-context-2) - [Lessons For Founders](#lessons-for-founders) ## 1. BambooBox Raises $6.6M For Account-Based Marketing ### Deal Overview - **Stage:** Seed - **Sector:** SaaS / B2B Marketing - **Geography:** India - **Round Size:** $6.6M ### Investor Profile Peak XV Partners led the round through its Surge accelerator programme. Surge has backed over 100 startups across Southeast Asia and India since 2018, with a focus on early-stage companies that can scale across markets. Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India) brings deep B2B SaaS expertise, having backed companies like Postman, CleverTap, and MoEngage at early stages. ### Company and Leadership [BambooBox](https://www.bamboobox.ai) builds an AI-driven account-based marketing platform for enterprise demand generation and B2B sales optimization. The company has been operating within the Surge ecosystem, which typically provides hands-on support for go-to-market, hiring, and product development during the first 16 weeks. ### Problem and Opportunity B2B marketing teams burn budget on leads that never convert. The gap between marketing qualified leads and actual pipeline is wide, especially for enterprise sales cycles. Account-based marketing narrows the funnel by targeting specific high-value accounts with personalized campaigns, but most ABM tools remain expensive and complex for mid-market teams. ### Product and Technology BambooBox uses AI to help sales and marketing teams identify, score, and engage enterprise accounts. The platform ties together intent signals, engagement data, and firmographic information to prioritize accounts most likely to convert. This lets demand generation teams focus spend on accounts that actually move through the pipeline. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $6.6M will fuel product development and market expansion. BambooBox is positioning itself as the ABM layer for India’s growing enterprise SaaS market, where companies increasingly sell to global buyers and need data-driven targeting to compete. ### Market Context The global ABM market is projected to reach $1.6B by 2027. Competitors include 6sense, Demandbase, and Terminus in the US. India-born ABM platforms have a cost advantage and can serve the growing base of Indian SaaS companies selling internationally. ## 2. Velmenni Raises $3.6M For Li-Fi Wireless Communication ### Deal Overview - **Stage:** Seed (Pre-Series A) - **Sector:** Deeptech / Wireless Communication - **Geography:** India (New Delhi) - **Round Size:** ₹30Cr (~$3.6M) ### Investor Profile Pi Ventures led the round, joined by MountTech Growth Fund-Kavachh and Apekso. Pi Ventures is one of India’s few dedicated deeptech VCs, with a portfolio that includes companies in AI, robotics, and advanced materials. MountTech’s Kavachh fund focuses on defence and security technology, a natural fit given Velmenni’s military contracts. ### Company and Leadership [Velmenni](https://www.velmenni.com) was founded in 2014 by Deepak Solanki. That’s 12 years of R&D before this raise. The company has previously secured ₹30Cr in seed funding plus ₹7Cr in government grants, including ₹4Cr from the Department of Telecommunications and three grants from the Ministry of Defence’s iDEX programme. ### Problem and Opportunity Radio frequency spectrum is congested and expensive. Telecom operators pay billions for spectrum licenses. Defence installations need secure wireless links that can’t be intercepted by RF scanning. And in dense urban environments, Wi-Fi networks interfere with each other. Light-based communication sidesteps all three problems because it operates outside the RF band entirely. ### Product and Technology Velmenni builds two core products. Free Space Optics (FSO) uses laser links to transmit data at 10Gbps+ over distances of 1 to 25 km without spectrum licenses. Their adaptive optics handle rain, fog, and tropical weather conditions. The second product is Li-Fi, which uses LED light waves for indoor wireless at up to 1Gbps, roughly 10x the efficiency of standard Wi-Fi. All hardware is manufactured in India. The company has 50+ live deployments across India, Southeast Asia, and with US Tier-1 operators. Their standout deployment is India’s first carrier-grade FSO for private 5G at GMR’s thermal power plant, running at 99.999% uptime for over 18 months. They also hold an Indian Navy submarine harbour connectivity contract. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision Funds go toward commercializing patented FSO and Li-Fi solutions, building customized defence and enterprise products, expanding manufacturing, and scaling into international markets in Southeast Asia and the US. The long-term goal is positioning FSO and Li-Fi as the default connectivity layer for spectrum-constrained environments, with eventual expansion into 5G/6G backhaul. ### Market Context The global FSO market is projected at $3.5-4B by 2028, growing at roughly 30% CAGR. The Li-Fi market could reach $75B+ by 2030, especially after IEEE ratified the 802.11bb Li-Fi standard in 2023. Competitors like fSONA and Plaintree are Canada-based but lack India-specific deployments, defence qualification, or emerging-market pricing. Velmenni’s international patent portfolio and military contracts create a moat that’s hard to replicate. ## 3. Mave Health Raises $2.1M For Neurotechnology Mental Health ### Deal Overview - **Stage:** Seed - **Sector:** Healthtech / Neurotechnology - **Geography:** India (Bengaluru) and US (San Francisco) - **Round Size:** $2.1M ### Investor Profile Blume Ventures led the seed round, joined by Inuka Capital and Stanford Angels. Individual investors include the founders of Groww, Aureolis Ventures, Forj Capital, and Dhawal Shroff, who leads Autopilot AI at Tesla. Blume has a track record of backing early-stage companies in health and consumer tech across India, including Purplle and Healthifyme. ### Company and Leadership [Mave Health](https://www.mavehealth.com) was founded in 2023 by Dhawal Jain (CEO), Jai Sharma (CMO), and Aman Kumar (CTO). The three are college batchmates. Jain started the company after his flatmate’s fiancée died by suicide during COVID lockdowns. The company is dual-headquartered in Bengaluru and San Francisco. Before this round, they raised under $1M from All In Capital at pre-seed, bringing total funding to roughly $3M. ### Problem and Opportunity India has over 150 million people who need mental health care and a severe shortage of psychiatrists. Most people either can’t access treatment or rely on medication with significant side effects. On the other end, wellness apps offer meditation and journaling but lack clinical backing. There’s a gap between pharmaceutical intervention and consumer wellness products that remains largely unfilled. ### Product and Technology Mave Health’s product is a tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) headset paired with a companion app. The headset weighs about 100 grams and delivers a low 1-2 milliamp electrical current to targeted brain regions during daily 20-minute sessions. tDCS itself isn’t new. It has over 25 years of research behind it and more than 10,000 published papers. What Mave is doing is packaging it for consumer use at $495 per unit. Their private beta with 500+ users showed that 80% reported a 60% increase in productivity, and 75% saw stress reduction within two months. First shipments are targeting India and the US in April 2026. The app tracks mood, focus, and stress trends over time and integrates with therapist-supported wellness programmes. ### Use of Proceeds and Vision The $2.1M goes toward product launch and first-batch fulfilment in India and the US, marketing, user acquisition, regulatory groundwork, and hiring. The longer-term vision is a closed-loop mental health system where brain stimulation hardware, behavioural data, and AI-personalized protocols work together to adjust treatment in real time. ### Market Context The US mental health market is valued at over $280B. Competitors include Muse (meditation headband), Flow Neuroscience (tDCS, but prescription-only in the EU), and Halo Neuroscience. Mave differentiates on two fronts: consumer accessibility without a prescription, and an India-first approach that serves a massive underserved population. The dual-market strategy lets them capture volume in India while building revenue in the US. ## Lessons For Founders - **Hardware deeptech can raise at seed in India if the moat is provable.** Velmenni spent 12 years in R&D before this raise, but they came to the table with military contracts, 50+ deployments, and international patents. Investors funded traction, not a pitch deck. - **Government grants and defence contracts are underrated validation.** Velmenni’s three iDEX grants and DoT funding did more than provide capital. They served as third-party proof that the technology works in high-stakes environments. Founders building in regulated or government-adjacent sectors should treat procurement wins as fundraising assets. - **Personal motivation resonates when paired with market data.** Mave Health’s founding story is deeply personal, but the $2.1M raise happened because India’s 150M mental health gap and the US’s $280B market gave investors a clear return path. Story opens the door; numbers close the deal. - **Dual-geography positioning expands your investor pool.** Both Mave Health (Bengaluru + San Francisco) and BambooBox (India + global SaaS buyers) are building for multiple markets from day one. This widens the set of investors who can write a check and the TAM they underwrite against.