Helius, a startup focused on Solana infrastructure, has successfully secured $9.5 million in Series A funding, led by Foundation Capital. Notable investors participating in this round include Reciprocal Ventures, Chapter One, Balaji Srinivasan, Anatoly Yakovenko, and Kyle Samani.
Founded during the crypto bear market of 2022 by Mert Mumtaz, a former Coinbase software engineer, along with Liam Vovk and Nicolas Pennie, former software engineers at Amazon Web Services, Helius aims to provide developers with the necessary tools to build decentralized applications.
Mumtaz noted Solana’s remarkable growth despite the challenges of the market in 2022, emphasizing the lack of simple and practical infrastructure and applications for developers. Helius seeks to address this gap by offering robust tooling to streamline development on Solana, thereby unlocking its vast potential.
Helius provides developers with a comprehensive set of tools to facilitate efficient application development on Solana. By simplifying the complexities of Solana’s scalability, Helius enables developers to focus on enhancing user experience without the burden of intricate blockchain integrations.
Funding To Be Used For Technical Team Expansion
With its latest funding, Helius intends to bolster its team by recruiting low-level systems and backend engineers while also focusing on enhancing its technical infrastructure.
Mumtaz highlighted a prevalent criticism within the crypto industry, emphasizing the scarcity of real-world applications that benefit ordinary individuals. He noted that much of the industry’s attention revolves around speculation rather than the creation of genuinely impactful solutions.
“To address this issue, we must simplify the process for developers to create apps that are affordable, efficient, and scalable,” Mumtaz emphasized.
The founders of Helius envision developers creating applications across various domains, including DeFi, NFTs, DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure network), governance, payments, wallets, and data.
Helius’ Series A Reflects Growing Confidence in Web3 Tech
Since its inception, Helius has been actively supporting platforms like Shopify, Discord, and Helium within the Solana ecosystem.
“Companies like these were seeking turnkey solutions to facilitate easier and more efficient blockchain integration,” remarked Mumtaz. “They lacked the resources or time to dedicate weeks, or even months, to set up infrastructure themselves. Helius provided the necessary tooling, leveraging our expertise and experience to their advantage.”
In October 2022, Helius successfully raised $3.1 million in a seed funding round, with Reciprocal Ventures and Chapter One leading the investment.
Helius’ Series A funding round coincides with a resurgence of venture capital interest in Web3 funding. According to PitchBook data, VC investments in crypto startups increased by 2.5% to $1.9 billion in Q4 2023, marking the first uptick since Q2 2022.
This data reflects a sense of optimism among crypto founders, who weathered the challenges of the recent “crypto winter.” The influx of fresh funding signals a positive shift in market conditions.
