Haleem met Fanning playing video games in the 2000s. Haleem also imagines the tech being useful for tracking wildfires or radiation. Nestle will track when it’s time to refill water in its ReadyRefresh coolers at offices, and Stay Alfred will use it to track occupancy status and air quality in buildings. Agulus will pull data from irrigation valves and pumps for its agriculture tech business. InvisiLeash will partner with it to build more trackable pet collars. “It’s an ultra low-cost version of a LoJack” Helium CEO Amir Haleem says. Helium already has some big partners lined up, including Lime, which will test it for tracking its lost and stolen scooters and bikes when they’re brought indoors, obscuring other connectivity, or their battery is pulled, out deactivating GPS.
HELIUM HOTSPOT BLUETOOTH
Investors are betting that he can change the tech world again, this time with a wireless protocol that like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth before it could unlock unique business opportunities.
![helium hotspot helium hotspot](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ObwAAOSwZq9frBwG/s-l300.jpg)
That’s in part because one of Helium’s co-founders is Napster inventor Shawn Fanning. The potential of a new wireless standard has allowed Helium to raise $51 million over the past few years from GV, Khosla Ventures and Marc Benioff, including a new $15 million Series C round co-led by Union Square Ventures and Multicoin Capital. Operating those hotspots earns owners a cryptocurrency token Helium promises will be valuable in the future…
![helium hotspot helium hotspot](https://mightygadget.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Helium-1024x542.jpg)
The catch is that Helium’s tiny, extremely low-power, low-data transmission chips rely on connecting to P2P Helium Hotspots people can now buy for $495. Its transmitters can help track stolen scooters, find missing dogs via IoT collars and collect data from infrastructure sensors. With 200X the range of Wi-Fi at 1/1000th of the cost of a cellular modem, Helium’s “LongFi” wireless network debuts today.