Helia Raises $3M From Silicon Valley Investors, Including Neo, Abstract Ventures and Kevin Hartz

Helia, a US based enterprise security startup by Indian origin co-founder, Ashwin Sreenivas, along with the company’s US co-founders, Russell Kaplan and Daniel Berrios, today announces that it has raised USD 3 million. The funding round was led by some of the top venture capital firms and investors in Silicon Valley including Neo, Abstract Ventures and Kevin Hartz, the cofounder and chairman of Eventbrite.

Helia’s SaaS platform enhances physical security within enterprises by autonomously reviewing security camera footage in real time. Rather than requiring large teams of human guards, Helia uses cutting edge deep learning to monitor cameras for security events, and alerts teams of breaches instantaneously, before they escalate into security incidents. Helia does this without requiring specialized cameras. Instead, it integrates with existing security cameras, processes their feeds on an enterprise’s premises using Helia’s deep learning stack, and centralizes results to the cloud where they can be viewed securely.

Helia has worked extensively with teams in India on product development, particularly in start-up hubs like Bangalore that are filled with deeply technical and entrepreneurial teams. Furthermore, Ashwin has deep connections to India, having spent the majority of his life in Cochin, Kerala.

“We are honored to have this incredible group of investors backing our vision and helping Helia on its journey” said Ashwin Sreenivas, co-founder of Helia. There is growing demand within enterprises for security teams to change posture from reactive to proactive. Rather than simply addressing the consequences of a breach, Helia allows security teams to prevent the incident altogether.

*  Helia's AI autonomously monitors all existing security cameras, and alerts security teams of breaches in real time, allowing officers to respond before the breach can escalate.

*  Breach detection ensures that only authorized employees have access to spaces.

*  Enterprise risk reports quantify risk over time allowing security leaders to uncover access control vulnerabilities and allocate guard staffing optimally

About the Founders: Ashwin Sreenivas, a technology entrepreneur from Kerala, is one of three co-founders at Helia; prior, he was a deployment strategist at Palantir Technologies, and has graduated with degrees in computer science and AI from Stanford University (BS, MS). Russell Kaplan, co-founder, was formerly a senior machine learning scientist at Tesla, and also has degrees in AI from Stanford University (BS, MS). Daniel Berrios, co-founder, worked in the TMT investment banking group at Goldman Sachs, and has a degree in economics from Stanford University.

About Helia: Helia is structuring and understanding the world's video. Billions of hours of video are created every day, but almost none of it can be used to create value; Helia changes this by using AI to autonomously review video in real time. The company uses advanced computer vision to integrate with existing security cameras and access control systems to monitor for breaches. Security teams are then notified of incidents in real time, along with a video clip of the event, allowing for quick identification, triage, and response.