About The Helm
The Helm is a venture capital firm founded in 2015. It is primarily based out of New York City, United States. As of Jan 2026, The Helm is an active investor, having invested in 31 companies, with 1 new investment in the last 12 months. It primarily invests in Seed round in United States based startups. Its investments are spread across a wide range of sectors from HealthTech to Retail and Enterprise Applications. Most recently it participated in the $***** Seed round of Biographica A lot of funds co-invest with The Helm, with names like XFactor Ventures sharing a substantial percentage of its portfolio. The Helm has team of 19 people including 3 partners.Key Metrics
Team Members
Portfolio Count
Portfolio Sectors
Portfolio Locations
Rounds of Entry
Seed & Series A
Deals in last 12 months
The Helm's List of Top Investments
The Helm has a portfolio of 31 companies. Their most notable investmentis in Hey JaneTheir portfolio spans across United States, United Kingdom, Puerto Rico and 1 more locations. They have invested in HealthTech, Retail, Enterprise Applications and 16 other sectors, across stages such as Seed, Series A stages. Here is the list of top investments by The Helm:Biodesigning high-performance ingredients for consumer goods, enhancing health and sustainability. The company is a biotechnology firm that develops and manufactures sustainable alternatives to traditional ingredients used in the beauty, personal care, and food industries. They utilize a proprietary biomanufacturing platform to produce high-value, high-impact ingredients like oils and fats. These ingredients offer enhanced performance, supply chain resilience, and reduced environmental impact. The company partners with brands and manufacturers to create products that meet consumer demand for health, wellness, and planetary well-being. Their Palmless™ platform delivers ingredients that are safe, effective, and sustainably sourced, addressing concerns related to supply chain volatility and regulatory requirements. This is a B2B company with a focus on sustainability and social impact.
Key facts about C16 Biosciences
- Founded Year: 2018
- Location: New York City (United States)
- Valuation: $*****
- Stage: Series A
- Total Funding till date: $29.1M
- Employee Count: 26 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: AME Cloud Ventures, For Good Ventures and 22 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Grant (prize money), Jan 24, 2024, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
2. AOA
Provider of an AI-enabled early detection platform focused on womens health. It offers a proprietary multi-omics platform called GlycoLocate to diagnose early-stage cancers by using a non-invasive blood test. and AKRIVIS GD is a liquid biopsy test that uses a multi-omics to analyze tumor-associated lipids and proteins for the diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Key facts about AOA
- Founded Year: 2019
- Location: Boston (United States)
- Valuation: $*****
- Stage: Series A
- Total Funding till date: $40.7M
- Employee Count: 56 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: LabCorp, FemHealthVentures and 32 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series A, Oct 01, 2025, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick

3. WTHN
Online platform for the purchase of herbal and traditional Chinese medicine products. The company offers herbal-based medicines, devices, and supplements for allergies, circulation, clear skin, dark circles, detox, digestion, and more.
Key facts about WTHN
- Founded Year: 2001
- Location: New York City (United States)
- Stage: Series A
- Total Funding till date: $7.5M
- Employee Count: 67 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: Top Corner Capital, SWaN & Legend Venture Partners and 9 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series A, Jan 08, 2024, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick

4. Biographica
Computational Platform for gene discovery and Editing. It offers a platform for gene discovery that leverages graph machine learning and customized knowledge graphs, to identify targets. It generates insights about genes in their natural context and guides experimentation.
Key facts about Biographica
- Founded Year: 2022
- Location: London (United Kingdom)
- Stage: Seed
- Total Funding till date: $9.5M
- Employee Count: 21 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: Faber, Entrepreneurs First and 4 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Seed, Jan 07, 2026, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
Key facts about Rebellyous Foods
- Founded Year: 2017
- Location: Seattle (United States)
- Stage: Series B
- Total Funding till date: $30M
- Employee Count: 17 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: Vulcan Capital, G Ventures and 25 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series B, Jan 08, 2025, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
The Helm's Year-on-Year Investment Trends
The Helm has invested in 31 companies over the last 8 years, with an average of 2 new investments annually in the last 5 years. In 2025, it made 1 investment, while as of Jan 2026, it has made 1 investment in this year. Its most recent first time investment was in Biographica and most recent follow-on round was in itselectric.Year | No. of Investments | ||
|---|---|---|---|
1st Round | Follow-on | Total | |
2026 (YTD) | 1 | 0 | 1 |
2025 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
2024 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
2023 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
2022 | 5 | 0 | 5 |
2021 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
2020 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
2019 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
2018 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
The Helm's Investments by Stage
The Helm has made 11 investments in Seed stage with an average round size of $4.02M and 6 investments in Series A stage with an average round size of $9.52M.Stage of entry | No. of Investments |
|---|---|
Seed | 11 |
Series A | 6 |
Note: We have considered here, only first round of investments
The Helm's Investments by Sector
The Helm has a diverse portfolio, with companies operating in the Consumer, HealthTech, Sustainability Tech, Food and Agriculture Tech and Retail. Notably, it has invested in 26 Tech companies, 20 Consumer (B2C) companies, 10 Software companies and at least 9 companies focusing on Enterprise (B2B).Sector | No. of Investments |
|---|---|
Consumer | 5 |
HealthTech | 5 |
Sustainability Tech | 4 |
Food and Agriculture Tech | 3 |
Retail | 3 |
Others | 16 |
Note: We have considered here, only first round of investments
The Helm's Investments by Geography
The Helm has made most investments in United States (14), followed by United Kingdom where it has made 2 investments.Country | No. of Investments |
|---|---|
United States | 14 |
United Kingdom | 2 |
Switzerland | 1 |
Note: We have considered here, only first round of investments
The Helm's recent investments
The Helm has made 1 investments in 2026 so far - Biographica.Here are the most recent investments by The Helm:
Date | Company | Location | Round Details | Round Amount | Co-Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jan 07, 2026 | United Kingdom | Seed | 1679 | [+4] | |
Sep 08, 2025 | United Kingdom | Seed | 8127 | [+8] | |
Jun 28, 2024 | United States | Seed | 7536 | [+8] | |
May 02, 2024 | Switzerland | Seed | 7083 | [+4] | |
Mar 26, 2024 | United States | Seed | 2147 |
Team profile of The Helm
The Helm has a team of 19 members including 3 Partners located in United States. The Helm's team does not sit on the board of any company as of now.Here is a list of top team members in The Helm:
Name | Designation | Location | Board Memberships | Contact Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Partner | New York City | - | ||
Partner | New York City | - | ||
Partner | New York City | - | - |
Co-investors of The Helm
Over the past 8 years, 194 investors have co-invested in The Helm's portfolio companies. This includes funds and angels.
- Invested before The Helm: Techstars, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and 49 others have invested in rounds before The Helm. There are 2 companies where Techstars has invested before The Helm and 1 company where Massachusetts Life Sciences Center has invested before The Helm.
- Top Co-investors of The Helm: 89 investors entered a company along with The Helm. These include investors like XFactor Ventures (3 companies).
- Invested after The Helm: A total of 54 investors have invested in The Helm's portfolio after their investments. Top Investors include Rhia Ventures (1 company), Good Growth Capital (1 company) and Astia (1 company).
Recent News related to The Helm
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British startup BoobyBiome’s €2.8 million raise for infant health with breast milk microbiome breakthroughEU-Startups•Sep 08, 2025•Empirical Ventures, Kayan Ventures, BoobyBiome, XFactor Ventures and 3 others
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itselectric Raises $6.5M in Seed FundingFinSMEs•Jul 16, 2024•itselectric, Failup Ventures, Uber, Halogen Ventures and 13 others
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Testmate Health Secures $6M in Seed Funding for Game-changing At-home Rapid STI TestFemtech Insider•May 03, 2024•Testmate, RH Capital, The Helm, Amboy Street Ventures and 3 others
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Food-as-medicine startup Chiyo helps postpartum moms with nutrition after raising $3 millionStartupNews•Mar 26, 2024•Chiyo, Bread and Butter Ventures, Ingeborg Investments, Union Heritage and 4 others
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Sway Raises $5M in Seed FundingFinSMEs•Feb 27, 2024•Sway, Third Nature Investments, The Helm, Alante Capital and 1 other
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AOA Dx Secures $17M to Advance Its Ovarian Cancer Diagnostic TestFemtech Insider•Oct 11, 2023•AOA, Good Growth Capital, RH Capital, Y Combinator and 8 others
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itselectric Raises $2.2M in Pre-Seed FundingFinSMEs•Mar 07, 2023•itselectric, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, The Helm, XFactor Ventures and 3 others
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Startup raises $3.5 million to bring additive manufacturing to fashionBiofuels Digest•Jul 12, 2022•Simplifyber, At One Ventures, Techstars, HG Ventures and 7 others
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Simplifyber Raises $3.5M in Seed FundingFinSMEs•Jul 06, 2022•Simplifyber, One Ventures, Techstars, HG Ventures and 16 others
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Realworld Raises $3.2M in FundingFinSMEs•Jun 09, 2022•Realworld, Fitz Gate Ventures, TTV Capital, Bezos Expeditions and 4 others


