We are excited to announce that we are leading the $4m seed financing in Helios, an AI-native platform that automates policy monitoring, stakeholder mapping, memo drafting, and regulatory intelligence for government affairs and compliance teams. 

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Helios is led by Joe Scheidler, Brandon Smith, and Joseph Farsakh, all who bring together experience from the White House, State Department, Microsoft, USAID, Datadog, and King & Spalding. These experiences bridge the deep public sector insight with world class technical execution. 

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If a business misses a shift in government or regulatory policy, it can create millions in lost business opportunities and/or expose the business to costly fines. Today, public policy professionals spend over 20 hours per week trawling disparate legislative portals, agency dockets, media outlets, and more to better understand the newest regulatory changes that are occurring. This inefficient process is often incomplete, creating substantial risks and pulls policy professionals away from critical work on new growth opportunities. 

Through Helios’ Proxi, teams can get access to the first AI-native OS purpose-built for public policy, regulatory affairs, legal, compliance, and government teams to streamline this work and focus on growth. It replaces the patchwork of tools these professionals rely on to navigate legislative change, manage public-private relationships, and respond to shifting regulatory demands. Whether in the private sector or across federal, state, and local governments – Proxi enables faster, more strategic decision-making in environments where the cost of delay or misalignment is measured in lost contract opportunities, failed policy, or reputational risk. The consequences aren’t just regulatory—they’re existential.

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The market opportunity for Helios is large with an estimated $5.6B spent on lobbying at the federal and state level in 2023. There are tens of thousands of companies in the US with corporate government affairs teams across the Fortune 500, Russell 2000, and other regulated industries in pharmaceuticals, defense, financial services, energy, and beyond. These companies today monitor and react to federal and local regulatory changes manually that directly impact their revenue, compliance, and/or strategic positioning.  

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“We are excited to back the talented founding team at Helios as they leverage AI to reshape how policy professionals drive critical strategy and growth within their organizations,” said Lars Albright, General Partner at Unusual Ventures. “As regulations continue to evolve rapidly and grow increasingly complex, modern tools that enable enterprises not only to stay informed, but also to respond swiftly and strategically, are more essential than ever.”

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We’re excited to partner with the Helios team on their mission to transform how public and private sector stakeholders navigate regulation. To learn more, visit https://heliosintel.ai/.