In a significant stride towards transforming the cloud computing landscape into a model of efficiency and sustainability, Swiss startup Helio has successfully raised €4.9 million in seed funding. This equity and debt round, led by QBIT Capital, renowned for its backing of Relio, has attracted a cadre of notable investors with a deep commitment to sustainability and cutting-edge technology. Notable backers include Uebermorgen Ventures, seed+speed Ventures, Cloud Angel Investors, Rockstart Energy Fund, ROI Ventures, Swisspreneur, and Cloud Angel Investors.
Helio is poised to harness this funding to accelerate its market reach, with a particular focus on domains like 3D rendering and artificial intelligence (AI). This strategic move aligns with the surging demand for sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective cloud computing solutions. Helio's ambitions encompass optimizing carbon-aware workload scheduling, expanding its network of environmentally friendly data centers, enriching the cloud spot market with surplus capacity, and advancing its 3D rendering capabilities, particularly targeting the Visual Effects (VFX) market.
Kevin Häfeli, co-founder and CEO of Helio, expressed the profound significance of this funding, remarking, "This marks a pivotal moment for Helio, not only in terms of securing financial backing but also in forging partnerships with like-minded visionaries who share our commitment to a carbon-aware cloud. As we advance our mission to revolutionize the cloud computing industry, making it more efficient and sustainable, this capital injection empowers us to concurrently reduce cloud expenditures and emissions for our clients. We are especially excited about unlocking novel data center possibilities as we make strides in key areas like 3D rendering and AI. The future of cloud computing is here, and it's greener and more efficient than ever."
Luis Huber, Partner at QBIT Capital, underscored Helio's role as a catalyst for positive change in sustainability and cloud computing efficiency. He highlighted Helio's innovative approach as strategically timed to address pressing industry challenges.
Max ter Horst, Managing Partner at Rockstart, emphasized the urgency of curbing the energy consumption and carbon emissions stemming from data centers. He lauded Helio's solution, which optimizes resource utilization and reduces idle energy consumption, as a crucial step towards greener and more cost-effective cloud computing.
Founded in 2018 by Kevin Häfeli and Christoph Buchli, Helio embarks on a mission to redefine cloud computing by tackling its environmental and efficiency concerns head-on. The startup taps into the latent computing capacity of data centers, repurposing it for compute-intensive applications such as rendering, AI, and research.
This unique approach addresses the dual challenges of industry inefficiency, which currently hovers below 20%, and its substantial environmental footprint. With the cloud computing sector set to account for 6% of the world's electricity usage by 2030, Helio's innovative model offers a greener, more sustainable, and cost-effective alternative. The company has set a formidable goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 200 million tons by 2030, marking a significant step towards a more sustainable digital future.
