Next-generation AI software provider Helm.ai raised $31 million in Series C funding today. The money will be used to further develop the company’s products and expand into new markets.
Strategic investors Honda Motor Co., Goodyear Ventures, and Sungwoo Hitech joined the round, which was led by Freeman Group and featured participation from ACVC Partners and Amplo. With this round of funding, Helm.ai has raised a total of $78 million to date. The money will go into research and development, productization of Helm.ai’s autonomous driving technologies, and expanding commercial engagements with clients and partners in the automotive and robotics industries.
“Our Deep Teaching technology allows us to quickly deliver best-in-class AI software to OEMs and Tier 1s in a hardware-agnostic fashion, accelerating their time to market and enabling their path to software differentiation with high-end ADAS and L4 systems,” said Helm.ai CEO Vlad Voroninski, “This new capital will increase our AI offerings for autonomous driving and robotics applications and expand the commercialization footprint of our cutting-edge AI software stack.”
This is Freeman Group’s third investment in a company led by Helm.ai’s current CEO, Vlad Voroninski. Vlad served as Chief Scientist at Sift Security before helping to form Helm.ai in 2016. Sift Security was a cybersecurity machine learning firm backed by Freeman Group that was bought in 2018 by Netskope, the world’s fastest-growing private cybersecurity company at a valuation of $7.5 billion. As a result of this funding round, Brandon Freeman, founder of the private investment and asset management business Freeman Group, who also participated in Helm.ai’s Series B and Series C rounds, will join the company’s board of directors.
“Vlad was an integral part of Sift Security’s early success and has led Helm.ai’s growth and development effectively by delivering breakthrough AI software that the automotive sector is rapidly embracing,” said Freeman Group President Brandon Freeman. “Freeman Group couldn’t be more excited to have led Helm.ai’s Series C round and we will continue supporting the company’s rapid growth under Vlad’s leadership.”
The announcement of Helm.ai’s Series C funding round and the industry acclaim it has received comes at a time when the autonomous vehicle industry is undergoing a paradigm shift, with many competitors in the space failing due to weak technological and market positioning, and making way for next-generation technologies and more robust commercialization approaches toward L4 via the high-end ADAS market.
Helm.ai is well-positioned to gain a growing roster of customers in the months and years to ahead thanks to its generic, hardware agnostic approach to AI for autonomous systems.
