Helix Geospace raises £3m Seed funding to take its world-leading GPS antennas into mass production – UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund
Harwell, UK – Helix Geospace, the leading innovator in antenna and RF (radio frequency) technology, is pleased to announce that it has raised £3million seed funding in a round led by Bloc Ventures, and supported by the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), managed by Midven, part of Future Planet Capital, and private investors including a group of sophisticated HNWI’s introduced by Tony Best, who’s background is in finance and high-end electronics manufacturing.
Helix builds precision antennas designed and manufactured to the highest specifications that enable GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) product designers to create the smallest, most accurate positioning, navigation and time synchronization products. PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing) services delivered by satellite systems have become the lynchpin of global economies, with critical infrastructure, transportation, cyber-security and defence being dependent on them. These dependencies are vulnerable to the operating environments – busy cities and crowded RF spectra – and are under threat from malicious attack. Helix Geospace has invented and developed antenna technology that defends against these vulnerabilities and threats.
Helix’s patented DielectriX ™ antennas are targeted initially to receive PNT signals from GNSS (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Beidou) constellations, and the Satelles STL (Satellite Time and Location) signals delivered over the Iridium constellation as well as Iridium’s voice and data network. Future antenna variants will support LEO (low earth orbit) PNT services being planned and built by private companies as well as government agencies. Key capabilities of DielectriX antennas are their ability to discriminate true satellite signals from multi-path signals, interference and jamming, delivering high performance in a compact and rugged form factor. Helix’s customers include defence, automotive, aerospace and critical infrastructure sector companies.
In addition to this £3m round Helix has previously raised £2.5m investment from UKI2S and angel investors, and has participated in Wayra UK’s Intelligent Mobility Accelerator programme and Seraphim Capital’s Space Camp Mission 6. Helix has also received additional grant funding for advanced antenna development from the European Space Agency, and for anti-jamming/spoofing technology from UKI2S.
As a result of this funding round Helix CTO and DielectriX inventor, world-reknown GNSS antenna and receiver specialist Oliver Leisten will be growing his talented team of RF engineers, and COO Nick Filler, who had led operations groups at Nokia and Jaguar Land Rover, will build Helix’s operations team to drive the manufacturing ramp-up.
James Lewis, CEO of Helix, who has founded and led a series of technology start-ups said: “We started manufacturing DielectriX antennas using state of the art laser/robotics equipment developed in-house, and we are now set to scale up rapidly through partnerships with electronics manufacturing service providers in the UK. Future manufacturing growth plans will roll out our ‘factory-in-a-box’ to deliver global capability required to meet the expected demands for autonomous vehicles and systems where absolute resilience and precision of location data is essential for safety.”
David Leftley, CTO and Co-founder of Bloc Ventures commented: “Over 10 billion devices make use of satellite GNSS signals for geolocation, from simple consumer location services to critical aerospace applications. But the challenge of reliable, resilient location in demanding environments remains the same. Helix has gone to the root of the problem, the antenna, with a design made possible by the company’s world leading advances in AI, applied to advanced 3D manufacturing of ceramics. The result is the highest signal sensitivity from the smallest physical size, and the lowest implementation complexity and cost for a GNSS receiver. We’re really excited to support the team as they begin scaling the company and developing the product alongside their initial customers.”
Andy Muir, Investment Director at UKI2S, added: “We are pleased to continue of our support of the UK space initiative at Harwell Campus through our investment in Helix. Their growth opportunity in the roll-out of highly resilient PNT is global, and they are well positioned to provide the ground-based capability for next generation UK or international satellite-based PNT constellations.”
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Clare Coates
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About Helix Geospace:
Helix Geospace is a brand of Helix Technologies Ltd. The company is developing sophisticated antennas and electronic systems that defend against the vulnerabilities and threats to PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing) services delivered by GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) and future space-based navigation services. These services are relied on by $trillion global economies and critical national infrastructures, as well as transportation and security, and Helix is developing technology that assures signal integrity in RF-disruptive environments and mitigates against malicious attack.
About Bloc Ventures:
Bloc Ventures is a UK based venture capital investor specialising in European deep technology. Bloc’s vision is to grow the next generation of European technology businesses at the forefront of telecommunications and computing. The Bloc team has a complementary mix of technology, commercial and finance expertise developed over the last 30 years in careers in technology, including corporate ventures and M&A at Vodafone and Arm. The team applies their operational experience to provide a hands-on collaborative approach to rapidly scale portfolio companies.
About the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S):
UKI2S is a national seed investment fund that nurtures innovative businesses from great UK science to leverage private investment and grow jobs. The Fund is backed by UKRI, Dstl and other public bodies and is independently managed by specialist venture capital firm Midven, part of Future Planet Capital, the impact-led, global venture capital firm built to invest in high growth potential companies from the world’s top research centres. UKI2S provides the patient, long-term committed capital and strategic advice these companies need to flourish. Over the past decade and more, the fund has built a substantial track record of companies that between them have attracted over £600m of later stage investment. Learn more at https://ukinnovationscienceseedfund.co.uk/. Twitter: @UKI2S.