Siri co-founder backs US voice ID startup Helix in $6.2m round
Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus is backing Helix and will advise the startup.
Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus has invested in Helix, a startup developing voice-based identity verification technology that could replace CAPTCHA. Helix's technology can run directly on a user's device, providing a way to determine if someone is human and estimate their age without requiring sensitive personal information. The company was founded by Alex Oberg, Anna Dorofiyenko, and Mike Hall in 2025, after Ticketmaster acquired Oberg's previous startup.
Oberg previously worked on Verified Fan to prevent bots from accessing the platform. Helix's technology has attracted investment from Chicago Ventures and several other venture capital firms. The startup's technology can be deployed to block bot attacks and replace CAPTCHA, with one customer being Zeel, an in-home healthcare provider.
The CEO of Helix believes that their voice technology can detect conditions like drunkenness or distress and could offer an alternative to privacy trade-offs for age verification. However, the technology is not yet capable of reliably detecting AI agents during live calls or identifying individual speakers.
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- Siri co-founder backs Helix for its voice ID tech techcrunch.com
