Funding profile · mRNA vaccines

Helix Nanotechnologies

A thirteen year old mRNA company with a widely reported cap table and almost no filed record of its own. No Form D appears in EDGAR under either of its names, and the largest documented financing tied to it went to a spinout.

$6.4MTotal funding as of May 2020, Crunchbase figure cited by CNBC
$15.0MSeed raised Nov 2025 by Red Queen Bio, spun out of Helix Nano, led by OpenAI
0Form D filings under Helix Nanotechnologies or HelixNano in EDGAR
1Human clinical study on the public record, run in Australia

Data as of September 23, 2026. Company-reported figures are labeled.

Rounds at a glance

When Round Amount Investors Source
2013 Founding capital Not disclosed Angel checks from friends and family, plus grants Founder interview
2017 Y Combinator Not disclosed Y Combinator Founder interview
After 2017 Seed Not disclosed Starlight Ventures; the Data Collective Founder interview
Mar 2020 Pivot financing Not disclosed Existing investors, committed in about 24 hours per the CEO Founder interview
Apr 2020 Investment reported Not disclosed Sam Altman Trade press
By Mar 2021 Cumulative to date $6.4M Y Combinator and others; grant money from Schmidt Futures CNBC, citing Crunchbase
Undated Investor list published by the company Not disclosed Y Combinator, Sam Altman, Jeff Dean, Thiel Capital, Founders Fund Company-stated
Apr 2024 New investor announced Not disclosed LongeVC Investor-stated
Nov 2025 Red Queen Bio seed, spun out of Helix Nano $15.0M OpenAI led; Cerberus Ventures, Fifty Years, Halcyon Futures Reuters

What the filings show

Helix Nanotechnologies, Inc. · Form D · none on file

Searched
EDGAR full text search, Sep 23, 2026
Terms
“Helix Nanotechnologies” and “HelixNano”
All forms
28 and 49 hits, every one of them a filing by another registrant
Form D only
0 and 0
Company CIK
None found
Reading
Regulation D is one exemption among several; issuers relying on Section 4(a)(2) file nothing

Medicus Pharma Ltd. · Form 8-K · filed Aug 4, 2025

Item
8.01, with exhibit 99.1
Subject
Non binding memorandum of understanding with Helix Nanotechnologies Inc.
Scope
Thermostable, needle free mRNA vaccines; HN-0001 loaded into dissolvable microneedle arrays for a planned Phase 1 bridging study
Consideration
None disclosed
Third party
Sponsored research agreement with the University of Pittsburgh, under Dr. Lou Falo
Filing
SEC EDGAR, CIK 0001997296

Medicus Pharma Ltd. · Form 10-K · filed Mar 25, 2026

Status
MOU still non binding, nineteen months after signature
Language
“there can be no assurance that such definitive agreements will be executed”
Joint venture
Not formed
Filing
SEC EDGAR, CIK 0001997296

Reading the filings

  1. The company files nothing itself.Every EDGAR hit on the company name belongs to somebody else: a Nasdaq partner, blank check issuers whose sponsors list it in a biography. Zero Form D notices in more than a decade of private fundraising. That is legal and common, but it means no offered figure, no sold figure and no investor count are available from the filings.
  2. The only hard dollar number belongs to the spinout.Reuters put Red Queen Bio’s November 2025 seed at $15.0M led by OpenAI. Helix Nano’s own last public total, $6.4M, is a Crunchbase figure quoted by CNBC in March 2021 and is now five and a half years old.
  3. The cap table is the asset the company markets.Its own job posting says HelixNano is backed by investors “including Y Combinator, Sam Altman, Chief Scientist of Google+DeepMind Jeff Dean, Thiel Capital, and Founders Fund.” Reuters separately confirmed that Altman and OpenAI board member Nicole Seligman had invested, and that they received shares in Red Queen Bio in the spinout.
  4. The one contract on the record is non binding.The Medicus MOU was announced in August 2025 with no consideration disclosed. Seven months later the annual report still described it as non binding with no assurance definitive agreements would be executed. Treat it as an option, not revenue.
  5. Founder attention moved.The chief executive co-founded and raised for a different company in the same year the Australian trial was said to be finishing. Red Queen Bio works on AI biosecurity, and Helix Nano contributed to OpenAI biorisk testing, so the two are adjacent rather than unrelated.

Commercial signals

Signal Detail Source type
Regulatory No FDA approval, clearance or authorization; no 510(k) or PMA record; no US investigational filing found. Not found
Clinical Phase 1 of HN-0001 in Australia, ethics approval Mar 20, 2024. No registration on ClinicalTrials.gov. No results published. Public record
Intellectual property Two US patent families assigned to the company, one granted Oct 3, 2023. Public record
Partnerships 4basebio supplies synthetic DNA. Medicus Pharma MOU remains non binding. Partner-stated
Revenue None disclosed anywhere. Not found

What to watch

  • A first Form D, which would be the first hard number the company has ever filed.
  • Definitive agreements with Medicus Pharma, or an announcement that the MOU has lapsed.
  • Phase 1 results, or a formal statement that the Australian study has closed.
  • Whether the pipeline hinted at on the company website arrives with new capital behind it.

The Helix Nanotechnologies story on Healthcare DiscoveryHealthcare Discovery

Related companies

  • Notable Labs: Shared investor: Founders Fund. A blood cancer company that screened drugs against a patient’s own cells to predict who would respond, in-licensed a shelved Boehringer Ingelheim compound, reached
  • Gamgee: Shared investor: Founders Fund. A Y Combinator startup building personalised mRNA cancer vaccines for dogs, grown from one founder's attempt to save his own dog with ChatGPT and a university RNA lab
  • Indee Labs: Shared investor: Founders Fund. A Berkeley company that built a chip the size of a fingernail to push gene editing cargo into immune cells without a virus and without an electric shock
  • Sequence Bio: Shared investor: Data Collective. A St

Sources

  1. Public recordEDGAR full text search, Helix Nanotechnologies and HelixNano, all forms and Form D onlySEC · Sep 23, 2026
  2. Public recordMedicus Pharma Ltd., Form 8-K exhibit 99.1SEC EDGAR · Aug 4, 2025
  3. Public recordMedicus Pharma Ltd., Form 10-K for fiscal 2025SEC EDGAR · Mar 25, 2026
  4. Public recordPatents assigned to Helix Nanotechnologies, Inc.USPTO, via Justia
  5. IndependentOpenAI backs startup aiming to block AI-enabled bioweaponsReuters, Deepa Seetharaman · Nov 13, 2025
  6. IndependentThis biotech start-up is working overtime to develop a second-wave, mutation-resistant Covid-19 vaccineCNBC · Mar 29, 2021
  7. IndependentWhat it’s like to invent a coronavirus vaccine in the middle of a pandemicCNBC · Apr 24, 2020
  8. CompanyClinical Product Manufacturing Lead posting, investor listhelixnano.com · Sep 23, 2026
  9. CompanyHelixNano Australia receives HREC approval to initiate a Phase 1 clinical trialEIN Presswire · Mar 20, 2024
  10. InvestorLongeVC backs HelixNanoLongeVC · Apr 29, 2024

Compiled from SEC, FDA, USPTO and other public records and published reports as of September 23, 2026. Form D notices report offerings under Regulation D; the absence of a notice does not by itself show that no capital was raised. Healthcare Venture Capital Fund holds no position in Helix Nanotechnologies. This page is not an offer to sell or a recommendation to buy any security.