Helionis Labs Raises Pre-Seed for Dielectric Substrates
28 Jul 2026
Bengaluru-based Helionis Labs, a startup building heat-dissipating dielectric substrates for electronics, has raised a pre-seed round from Transition VC in June 2026. The company is developing dielectric material for insulated metal substrates, made domestically, aimed at solving heat dissipation problems across LED lighting, electric vehicles, telecom equipment, and industrial automation.
Timeline
- 2024: Helionis Labs founded
- 2025: Company reaches a workable version of the product
- June 2026: Pre-seed round raised from Transition VC
What Helionis Is Building
Founder Tarun Jha said Helionis rebuilt the thermal substrate stack around additive manufacturing and proprietary dielectric technology, targeting heat bottlenecks in LED lighting, EV power systems, and telecom infrastructure. The company is currently running pilots with two to three large LED manufacturers in India, though specific outcomes, performance metrics, or timelines for these trials have not been disclosed.
While lighting is the initial proving ground, the company points to electric vehicles as the larger opportunity — a bet grounded in the safety-critical nature of power electronics and rising EV volumes in India. Telecom equipment and industrial automation round out the list of sectors the technology could eventually serve.
Key Numbers
- Founded: 2024
- Workable product version reached: 2025
- Pre-seed round raised: June 2026
- Pilots underway with two to three large LED manufacturers
No figures have been disclosed for the round's amount or valuation, team size, patents, or the competitive landscape — details that would typically help gauge the scale of investor conviction.
Risks to Watch
Two risks stand out from the available facts:
- Unproven production scale. Helionis's additive manufacturing approach for depositing dielectric material works in lab conditions but has not been proven at production scale — a common hurdle for hardware and materials startups moving from prototype to volume manufacturing.
- Narrow early validation. Reliance on pilots with just two to three LED manufacturers means early market validation is still limited in breadth, even if those pilots succeed.
Why Founders Should Care
For founders in hardware, materials, or deep-tech sectors, Helionis's raise is a data point worth watching rather than a proven playbook. The pre-seed backing from Transition VC likely signals some investor appetite for domestically made thermal materials serving electronics manufacturing — a sector where heat dissipation is a persistent, cross-industry bottleneck. Pilots with multiple LED manufacturers could plausibly indicate early market interest, though without disclosed outcomes, it's too early to call this validated traction.
The company's pivot in framing — from lighting pilots toward EVs as the "larger opportunity" — may hint at how hardware startups reposition as they mature, likely chasing markets with higher safety stakes and volume growth. At the same time, the unproven jump from lab-scale to production-scale additive manufacturing is a reminder that materials science hardware faces a distinct set of scaling risks compared to pure software plays, and founders building in similar spaces should factor this into their own technical and funding roadmaps.
What's Missing
Several details remain undisclosed in current reporting: the size of the pre-seed round, valuation, pilot results, team composition, patent filings, and how Helionis differentiates from competitors in the thermal substrate space. Founders and investors tracking this space should watch for updates on these fronts as the pilots progress.