Helium Systems

Helium, Inc (or simply Helium) is an Internet-of-Things developer platform founded in 2013 by Amir Haleem, Sean Carey and Shawn Fanning.[1][2] Helium has received a total of $38 million in seed, series A, and series B funding[3]. Prominent investors include: Mark Benioff, SV Angel, FirstMark, Khosla Ventures, and GV (formerly Google Ventures).[3]

Helium's 'Atom' Radio module, which forms the core hardware component of its networking capability, contains a dual-band, 802.15.4 modem, an Atmel ATECC508A security key component.[4]

Products

The company previously developed a product that would monitor refrigeration systems and report out-of-range temperatures wirelessly.[5] However, they pivoted and in July 2017 announced a new offering to provide a hardware, and software platform for developers to build IoT applications. The new offering was positioned as a way for developers to streamline the ability to prototype, deploy and scale a long-range wireless network that connects thousands of end devices, and gives companies a simple way to deliver data from device to the cloud and application layer.[6]

Funding rounds

Seed round: $2,800,000, Nov 1, 2013

Series A: $16,000,000, Dec 9, 2014

Series B: $20,000,000 Apr 25, 2016

Previous use of Helium.com

Helium.com was founded in 2006 as a Yahoo! Answers-style website created from user generated content paid on a revenue sharing model. Over time the site evolved from short answers to stand-alone articles, and began to offer writers the opportunity to earn from selling articles as well as passive income. The sale of articles to businesses and publishers is now its primary business, and the revenue share arm has closed to new members, effective May 21, 2014. The sites which display revenue share articles will be closed down on December 15, 2014.

The site was acquired by Helium Systems and is defunct now.

History

Beginning life as HeliumKnowledge.com, Helium.com was launched in October 2006. Its original format was similar to Yahoo! Answers, with contributors answering questions with short, informative answers. Over time, the length of articles increased and they became stand-alone articles instead of answers to questions.

Helium originally pitched itself as an alternative to Wikipedia.[7] For writers, Helium's marketing focused on the opportunity to earn passive income in perpetuity. Then Helium began to enter partnerships with publishers, enabling writers to compete to sell articles to those publishers.

R.R. Donnelley purchased Helium.com in 2011 to expand its online presence.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (Dec 9, 2014). "With $16M In Funding, Helium Wants To Provide The Connective Tissue For The Internet Of Things". Techcrunch. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
  2. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (April 26, 2016). "Helium raises $20 million for smart industrial sensors". Venture Beat. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Helium - Investors | Crunchbase". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
  4. ↑ "Helium has a go at Internet of Things thing – using ultra-low power tech". The Register. 2015-11-02. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  5. ↑ Fried, Ina (2015-10-27). "Startup Helium Hopes Keeping Things Cool Is a Hot Market". Recode. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  6. ↑ Helium. "Helium Tackles the Connectivity Problem in IoT". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2018-05-05.
  7. ↑ Search Engine Journal
  8. ↑ "R.R. Donnelley Acquires Helium, World's Largest Writing Community". BookBusiness. 2011-06-22. Retrieved 2017-09-27.
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