Helium Inc., an industry-leading distributed wireless communications company, announced today that it has closed a $200 million Series D round of financing and officially launched its new name, Nova Labs. This round of financing was led by Tiger Global and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Seven Seven Six, Goodyear Ventures, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Liberty Global (including Virgin Media & Vodafone), NGP Capital funded by Nokia, Pantera Capital, Ribbit Capital and Deutsche Telekom's strategic investment fund Telekom Innovation Pool (TIP) participated in the investment. After the latest financing, NovaLabs’ valuation has exceeded US$1.2 billion, making it a “unicorn” company.
In order to reflect the core value of decentralization, Helium Inc. has officially changed its name to Nova Labs to clarify the boundaries between Nova Labs and the Helium network, the Helium blockchain, the HNT token, and the Helium community that drives ecological applications.
The new financing will be used to develop the Helium ecosystem. Nova Labs will add development resources to improve the network; drive long-term wireless protocol support, and drive new applications on the Helium network. Nova Labs will continue to expand its team and strive to realize the future vision of distributed wireless interconnection.
"Starting with Helium Inc., we laid the foundation for the world's first distributed wireless network, harnessing the power of the blockchain to enable undifferentiated Internet access worldwide,"Amir Haleem, Founder and CEO of Nova Labs said,"secondary title"
Expansion of distributed wireless network sharing economy
Billions of people around the world remain digitally isolated with limited access to the Internet. Because traditional methods of wireless infrastructure deployment are expensive and slow, many large telcos are unable to provide coverage in all areas. This is why the distributed wireless industry is a key link in solving this global problem.
Since the launch of the Helium network in 2019, Nova Labs has established IoT and 5G networks around the world. Through a new connection method, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people have the opportunity to participate in network construction and receive rewards.
Nova Labs uses the blockchain to incentivize people around the world to deploy gateways, enabling the Helium ecosystem to build wireless infrastructure faster and at a lower cost—a 4,000% increase in the number of gateways in over a year above. Since its launch in 2019, the Helium network now has more than 600,000 gateways, providing coverage to more than 52,000 cities in 169 countries and regions.
"Nova Labs uses technology to realize distributed wireless technology, and at the same time draws a blueprint for the rapid implementation of blockchain technology in real-world infrastructure," said Evan Feinberg, partner at Tiger Global, "We are proud to support Nova Labs in this aspects of exploration.”
"Since its inception, Helium networking has completely disrupted the wireless industry, putting the power of the Internet back in the hands of the people,"Alexis Ohanian, founder of Seven Seven Six, said, "Nova Labs is a prime example of how new incentive models can drive innovation, and we're looking forward to their upcoming products."
Nova Labs' ability to expand wireless infrastructure has been recognized by many industry leaders, including Goodyear. Goodyear Ventures is not only an investor in Nova Labs, but is also exploring becoming an enterprise customer of Helium Networks. This time, Goodyear joins the ranks of leading IoT and network providers such as Actility, Senet, Kore, X-Telia and DISH to provide coverage for their enterprise-level customers through cooperation with Helium Networks. These enterprises using Helium network include: Volvo Group, Cisco, Schneider Electric, Accenture, Olympus, One Planet, Careband, Hoopo, Invoxia, Victor, etc.
"For two decades, the wireless industry has searched for a fair and open way to build out network infrastructure. But the cost of coordinating among hundreds of thousands of peer participants has proven to be beyond our reach." Nova Labs The model created can truly lead us to a ubiquitous connected world.” said Rohini Chakravarthy, managing partner of NewBuild Ventures and formerly of NGP Capital,"The development of the Helium network has demonstrated the value they provide to independent network operators and network users."
Abhijit Ganguly, managing director of Goodyear Ventures, said:"Nova Labs is revolutionizing the way businesses connect to the Internet, and they are continuously improving productivity through the dense coverage provided by the Helium network."At Goodyear, we are committed to putting technology into action, and we can't wait to see what we can achieve together with Nova Labs and the Helium Network."
The news follows a year of breakthroughs for the Helium network. In 2021, the Helium network has achieved the fastest growth rate, and the number of gateways has increased from 14,000 to more than 500,000 in just 12 months; the Helium community also approved the expansion of the Helium network to 5G; in the first public cooperation project, the United States The City of San Jose announced that they will use the Helium network to provide internet to 1,300 low-income households in the heart of Silicon Valley in an effort to bridge the digital divide.
For more information about Nova Labs and the Helium network, welcome to joinsecondary title。
About Nova Labs
Nova Labs (formerly Helium Inc.) is a distributed wireless communication pioneer co-founded by Shawn Fanning and Amir Haleem in 2013, and is also the founding team of Helium network core technology. Investors in Nova Labs include Andreessen Horowitz, FirstMark, Goodyear Ventures, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Khosla Ventures, Liberty Global, Multicoin Capital, NGP Capital (funded by Nokia), Pantera Capital, Ribbit Capital, Seven Seven Six, Tiger Global , Union Square Ventures, Marc Benioff, Shawn Fanning, and other top VC firms. Nova Labs has always been committed to building network-critical infrastructure and technologies to support the vision of distributed wireless networks on a global scale. For more information, go to nova.xyz.
