Home » Helium Inc. raises $200 million and renames itself Nova Labs

Helium Inc. raises $200 million and renames itself Nova Labs

by Tim

Helium Inc. the company behind Helium Network (HNT), a decentralised blockchain-based wireless network, has successfully completed a $200 million fundraising round, bringing its valuation to $1.2 billion. In addition, the company has announced that it is renaming itself Nova Labs.

The new unicorn is renamed Nova Labs

On Thursday, March 31, Helium Inc. announced the successful completion of a $200 million Series D financing round. The company is now valued at $1.2 billion, making it a new unicorn of American Tech.

The round was jointly led by Tiger Global and the well-known a16z fund, owned by Andreessen Horowitz. In addition to these, there are also Seven Seven Six, Goodyear Ventures, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Liberty Global (Vodafone and Virgin Media) and Deutsche Telekom.

Helium Inc. has also announced that it will now be known as Nova Labs. The renaming initiative is part of an effort to mitigate confusion between the Helium Network decentralized network, the blockchain on which it is based, the Helium Token (HNT), and the core team that launched these projects.

We wanted to change the name to make it clear that we don’t own the network. We are the creators, but we’ve made it open-source, and it’s important to recognise that it’s the people who tirelessly grow and maintain the network,” said Frank Mong, Director of Operations at Nova Labs.

Based on the blockchain of the same name, Helium is a decentralised wireless network, also known as “the people’s network”. Very simply, each user deploying a single device in their home can provide network coverage for miles around. In exchange, they receive rewards in HNT, the network’s native cryptocurrency.

Helium was co-founded in 2013 by Shawn Fanning and Amir Haleem, and its initial wireless network was aimed at Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It quickly exploded from just 14,000 active nodes in 2021 to over half a million today.

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