Siri Co-founder Backs Voice ID Startup Helix in $6 Million Funding Round
Voice identity verification startup Helix has raised $6 million led by Chicago Ventures, with Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus joining as an advisor.
According to TechCrunch, voice identity verification startup Helix has closed a $6 million funding round led by Chicago Ventures, with participation from BAM Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, Corazon Capital, Tusk Ventures, Yonder Ventures, Rule30, and Brown Alumni Group. Dag Kittlaus, the co-founder of Siri, has backed the company and will serve as an advisor.
Founded in 2025 by Alex Oberg, Anna Dorofiyenko, and Mike Hall, Helix offers on-device voice technology designed to verify human users without collecting sensitive personal data. Oberg, who previously helped create Ticketmaster’s 'Verified Fan' system to block bots, argues that traditional identity proxies like email or IP addresses are failing as AI agents become more prevalent. He posits that voice, as a biometric signal, offers a more robust way to distinguish humans from machines.
The company claims its compressed model can run locally even on an iPhone 13, minimizing deployment costs. Zeel, an in-home healthcare provider, is already using Helix’s technology to verify visiting caregivers. Kittlaus noted that voice identification has reached a point of reliability, giving Helix a cost advantage through model compression. However, CEO Oberg acknowledged current limitations: the technology cannot reliably detect lies, does not identify individual speakers, and is not yet capable of detecting AI agents during live calls.