Helix Earth, a Houston-based hardware company focused on energy efficiency and humidity management, has raised $12 million in an oversubscribed Seed 2 funding round to scale its commercial HVAC technology.
The round was led by Veriten, with participation from Rua Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Skywriter LLC, Textbook Ventures, and other investors. The financing attracted support from innovation ecosystems across Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Houston, and Saudi Arabia, reflecting growing interest in solutions for energy efficiency, industrial filtration, and carbon capture.
Founded in 2022 and spun out of Rice University, Helix Earth is developing a retrofit system for commercial air conditioning that separates temperature control from humidity management. The company’s approach is based on proprietary liquid-gas chemistry technology with roots in NASA research.
The system is designed to address key challenges faced by building owners, including rising energy costs, poor humidity control, and aging HVAC infrastructure. By decoupling temperature and moisture management, the technology aims to improve indoor air quality, reduce energy consumption, extend equipment lifespan, and lower maintenance costs.
Helix Earth plans to use the new funding to scale manufacturing and accelerate deployment of its first commercial product, targeting a significant portion of the $150 billion global commercial air conditioning market.
The company has already gained industry recognition, including being named to the Cleantech 50 to Watch list, winning first place at the 2025 SXSW Pitch competition, and receiving Pepperdine Graziadio Business School’s “Most Fundable Companies” award. It has also secured a Phase II SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation along with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Helix Earth’s leadership team includes co-founder and CEO Dr. Rawand Rasheed and co-founder Brad Husick, who brings experience from five successful startups. The company has been incubated at Greentown Labs in Houston since 2023.
With fresh capital and early commercial traction, Helix Earth is positioning itself to modernize HVAC systems and deliver more energy-efficient, cost-effective solutions for commercial buildings.
KEY QUOTES:
“This investment will empower the Helix Earth team to scale manufacturing and accelerate deployment of our first hardware product, a retrofit system designed to disrupt a significant portion of the $150 billion commercial air conditioning market. Building owners are dealing with rising energy costs, uncontrolled humidity, and aging infrastructure with no viable, cost-effective path forward. We are in the field today solving these problems for commercial customers, and this capital puts us on an aggressive path to scale. We’ve spoken with hundreds of building owners representing tens of thousands of locations, and the message is consistent. They want more comfortable spaces, better air quality, lower energy bills, less product spoilage from uncontrolled humidity, and longer life out of their existing AC equipment. Helix Earth gives them exactly that, without the massive cost of ripping out and replacing what they already have. The strength of this round reinforces our team’s conviction that we can transform innovation-starved sectors with transformational solutions that deliver order-of-magnitude improvements to owners and operators, for both their bottom line and the environment.”
Dr. Rawand Rasheed, Co-Founder And CEO, Helix Earth
“We are tripling our investment in Helix Earth. The team has built breakthrough technology with real applicability across multiple industries. Their first product will have an immediate and measurable impact on our energy system, and they are already pursuing adjacent innovations to help heavy industries operate more efficiently and with less waste. This is a well-rounded team with a proven track record of strong execution and disciplined capital management.”
Maynard Holt, Founder And CEO, Veriten
