Helix, a Los Angeles startup that uses a short voice sample to verify that a user is a human and to estimate their age, has raised $6.2 million in pre-seed funding and gone live with its first partners. Chicago Ventures led the round, with participation from BAM Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, Corazon Capital, Tusk Ventures, Yonder Ventures, Rule30, Press On Ventures and Brown Angel Group.
Users complete a four-number voice challenge, and Helix says it can detect bots and predict age in under four seconds. Its biometric multi-factor authentication and age assurance run entirely on the user’s phone, and the company says no biometric data or other personally identifiable information is stored on any server. Through one software development kit, Helix offers bot management, biometric MFA and age assurance, which it is pitching to ticketing, dating, gaming, gambling and fintech platforms.
The company says it meets ISO/IEC 27566-1:2025, an international standard for age assurance systems, and is accredited under the Age Check Certification Scheme. It also says it is one of the first companies certified under the IEEE Online Age Verification Certification Program, which it describes as the framework used by New York’s SAFE for Kids Act. Helix noted that the law, taking effect in January 2027, requires certified age assurance and at least one option that does not require a government ID.
Helix is in beta with early partners including Zeel, an in-home health and wellness platform, which is evaluating it as an additional verification step. “The Trust and Safety landscape is changing quickly, particularly as AI creates new challenges around identity and verification,” said Zeel founder and CEO Samer Hamadeh.
Helix was founded in 2025 by Alex Oberg, Anna Dorofiyenko and Mike Hall. Oberg previously worked at Ticketmaster on Verified Fan, a system designed to keep bots from buying tickets. Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus is an adviser, and former Ticketmaster president Jared Smith is a board member and investor.
“The traditional approach has been to collect reams of sensitive data, ranging from uploaded driver’s licenses to video selfies, which is both cumbersome for customers and puts their privacy at risk,” Oberg said. “Helix solves these problems by using voice to verify identity and doing so entirely on-device.”
Sources: PR Newswire, The Daily Star
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
