HELIXintel closes Series A, led by National Grid Partners

When HELIXintel decided to start raising a Series A funding round, its leadership wanted a partner that could bring not only capital but also expertise in helping the startup scale.

CEO Jon DeWald said the business found the right fit in National Grid Partners, the corporate innovation and venture arm of National Grid.

“We’ve really unlocked that insurance side, and we’ve got a team of members with varying expertise,” DeWald said. “The natural fit for us was part of what we’re doing with utilities.”

National Grid Partners led the startup’s recently closed $11 million Series A round. Those funds will help HELIXintel — which provides digital tools that help companies track, maintain and acquire equipment — accelerate its growth and accommodate demand.

The startup’s business model works like this: It has top-level insurance groups as customers, which gives it access to hundreds of insurance companies and millions of properties underneath those larger companies’ umbrellas.

That way, when customers' properties want to start using HELIXintel’s platform, they’re already insured so all the business has to do is activate those sites on its platform.

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Shortly before closing the round, the startup also launched HELIXintel Savings Scout, a product that helps businesses identify and apply for building-related incentives, from rebates to grants to tax credits, for capital and operational improvements.

By partnering with National Grid, the startup is taking the energy company's incentives program structure and layering it over the properties on HELIXintel’s platform so that users can identify what energy cost-saving measures are available in a more efficient way, according to DeWald.

The startup, which was founded in 2019 and is based at the Incubator@CBLS facility on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, also closed a $4 million seed funding round last year.

DeWald said that for the Series A round, he and his team took their time thinking through how much capital was needed, when they wanted to raise it and how they would manage the funds and the company's scaling.

“We need it, because of the growth we’re seeing,” he said. “We’re in … hyper-scaling mode.”

In Q2 2023, HELIXintel added over 100,000 buildings onto its platform, according to DeWald. The company has millions of properties in its pipeline that are already insured and just need to be activated.

The Series A funds will be used for business expansion through adding to its customer success, operations and engineering teams. The startup employs 18 now and has a few more joining within the next month.

DeWald expects to reach about 27 workers by the end of this year.

“We have so much to do so it’s just … you have to do it smartly,” he said. “We’re making sure we’re providing incredible service."

HELIXintel is the sixth local company to acknowledge a private, growth-oriented round of funding this year. The list includes Azuna ($486,000), Immunaeon ($600,000), Latte ($100,000), Aerovec ($178,000), CleanFiber ($6.7 million) and HELIXintel ($11 million).