The D2C startup will initially deploy the fresh funds to scale manufacturing, build inventory, and strengthen go-to-market efforts before shifting focus to brand-building, customer acquisition, hiring, and product development. Helium, founded in 2025 by IIT Kanpur alumni Ashish Sharma and Aman Munka, is building compact, cost-effective ACs for homes, with its first product designed to cool up to 100 sq ft using a 2,700-watt system that can run on a 1 kW solar panel.