Teppo Hemiä, CEO of Wirepas
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], October 27: Teppo Hemiä, CEO of Wirepas, outlines how the company’s Wirepas Certified business model converts operational accountability into long-term financial value. By linking payment to verified meter performance, Wirepas creates a new benchmark for capital efficiency and investor confidence in India’s utility sector. Hemiä also shares how standardized architecture, local partnerships, and milestone-based financing are enabling Wirepas to scale profitably while ensuring measurable returns for utilities, investors, and partners across the value chain.
1. You’ve introduced a bold “only pay for meters that connect and perform” model in India. From a financial perspective, how do you assess the risk and reward for Wirepas in shifting liability to yourself rather than utilities or AMI service providers?
Yes, it shifts accountability to us, and that’s intentional. We have proven reliability with more than 10 million meters already connected in India. The real risk lies in doing business as usual, not in guaranteeing performance. Our model builds trust and eliminates uncertainty for utilities and AMI providers. For Wirepas, the reward is scale and credibility. When you stand behind performance, you elevate the entire ecosystem, and that’s a far more powerful and sustainable position than simply selling technology.
2. What does this new business model mean for the revenue and margin structure of Wirepas in India? How soon do you expect to see sustainable profitability from these deployments?
Wirepas Certified moves us from transactional sales to predictable, performance-based recurring revenue. While margins are initially tighter, standardization and automation quickly drive efficiency. As integration with AMI players matures, our and our partners’ cost of deployment falls significantly. We expect sustainable profitability when performance-based billing ensures steady, recurring revenue and cash flow benefitting everyone involved. The model is built for scale: the more meters perform, the stronger the margins get to all in the value chain.
3. India’s smart metering programme targets 300+ million meters. How has Wirepas sized the Indian opportunity, what share of that do you realistically target, and how does that translate into revenue potential over the next 3-5 years?
India’s AMI program is the world’s largest. Even a 10–15% share represents tens of millions of connected meters. That’s a multi-year recurring revenue opportunity of substantial scale. Our focus is not on chasing share for volume’s sake, but on becoming the trusted AMI connectivity layer for India’s power sector. Over the next three to five years, we expect Wirepas Certified to set the industry standard for reliable, performance-based smart metering. Our market share will be driven by utilities who accepts only the performance set in the India smart metering program.
4. With connectivity guaranteed and performance measured, how will you structure your contracts with utilities and AMI solution providers in India to protect Wirepas’s financial exposure while scaling rapidly?
We build protection through transparency and verification. Each Wirepas Certified contract is tied to measurable performance metrics: connection reliability, functionality and pre-paid operations as defined in the Standard Bidding Document. Utilities pay only when those metrics are met. This ensures predictable exposure, efficient scaling and full accountability from day one of rollout to long-term operation.
5. The Indian market is unique in its cost pressure, rural/urban mix, regulatory context, and payment models. How has Wirepas adapted its pricing, financing, and deployment economics for India compared with other markets?
India’s market demands affordability without compromise. We’ve adapted Wirepas Certified with flexible, per-meter pricing and a zero-gateway architecture, which reduces capital and operational costs while simplifying deployment. Local partnerships and pre-integration with AMI players help optimize logistics and streamline rollout. The model aligns with India’s performance-driven and prepaid frameworks, ensuring utilities can implement large-scale smart metering programs in a cost-effective and scalable way.
6. You’re operating a capital-intensive model when you take on risk for meter performance. What financing or investment strategies are you deploying (or planning) to manage working capital, cash-flow and deployment risk in India?
Our approach is capital-disciplined. We structure rollouts around verified milestones, so cash flow aligns with performance outcomes. This lets us scale rapidly while staying financially resilient.
7. How does Wirepas’s technology advantage (99.99% reliability, self-healing mesh, no gateways) translate into a measurable cost-saving or ROI for utilities, and how will you use those numbers to drive business case conversations with Indian customers?
Wirepas Certified removes gateways entirely and delivers proven 99.9% uptime, significantly reducing total cost of ownership. Maintenance costs fall sharply thanks to self-healing mesh, remote firmware updates and zero single-point failures. For utilities, this means faster payback and higher operational efficiency. Our value proposition is simple: simple infrastructure, lower integration costs, and guaranteed performance. That’s a clear ROI story utilities can take to their boards and regulators.
8. India is a fast-growing but competitive smart-meter/IoT connectivity market. What do you view as the major business risks (regulation, competition, supply chain) for Wirepas in India, and how are you mitigating them?
India’s market complexity, from evolving regulation to multi-vendor interoperability, is both a challenge and a strength. We mitigate risk by building on open standards (NR+) and sourcing locally wherever possible. Our decentralized mesh removes dependency on single operators or gateways, making both the network and business model resilient. Our strategy is long-term: open, interoperable and fully aligned with India’s regulatory and market direction.
9. How do your partnerships with major global players (Silicon Labs, Bosch, etc) impact your cost, pricing, and business scalability in India? Are you able to pass on benefits to Indian customers and remain competitive?
Our global partnerships bring technology leadership, manufacturing efficiency and long-term cost stability. Our semiconductor partners scale together us beyond India too. The total scale benefits all players in the value chain. We pass these benefits directly to Indian customers through competitive pricing and faster deployment. These collaborations also ensure supply chain reliability, essential for large-scale, time-critical AMI rollouts. By combining global innovation with local execution, we stay cost-efficient and highly competitive.
10. Looking ahead beyond 2025: what is your business vision for India, will Wirepas aim for full market leadership in Indian AMI, new adjacent business lines (smart buildings, asset tracking), or possibly an IPO/exit strategy tied to the Indian business?
India smart metering is the biggest IoT project globally and it is already our fastest-growing market, and we see it as a long-term growth engine. Our immediate goal is leadership in AMI connectivity, setting the benchmark for guaranteed performance. Beyond that, the same mesh technology extends naturally to smart buildings, industrial IoT and more. Therefore, we work closely with European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) who in turn collaborates with Bureau of Indian Standards. That guarantees the highest standards for cybersecurity and connectivity. We’re building a business meant to last: scalable, profitable and deeply integrated into India’s connected future.
