Confidential Teaser

Critical infrastructure intelligence, mispriced as inspection services.

Project Helios is a services-led infrastructure intelligence platform serving utilities, energy operators, and selected hyperscaler-related environments where reliability, safety, and regulatory compliance already justify recurring inspection and asset-integrity spend.

The investment case is to buy the proven operating base at a disciplined entry valuation and fund the specific commercial, product, and software GTM work required to convert embedded customer access, software ARR, and autonomy-adjacent capability into a cleaner, better-rated platform story.

FY27 Revenue $51.6M
ARR Base $6.0M
FY27 EBITDA $8.4M
Employees 258
HQ Denver, CO | Edinburgh, UK
Business background

Project Helios is a utility and energy asset-intelligence platform built around inspection execution, workflow orchestration, software attach, and a growing autonomy roadmap inside critical infrastructure environments.

What it does

It turns inspection activity into evidence, reporting, and decision support across fragmented infrastructure workflows rather than treating image capture as the end product.

Who it serves

Large investor-owned utilities, energy operators, and selected hyperscaler-related infrastructure accounts where downtime, safety, auditability, and asset reliability matter.

Why it differs

Customer embed, software attach, workflow relevance, NDAA-compliant fleet transition, and early DIAB programs create a stronger position than either pure field operators or software-only challengers.

Operations

Six-office operating footprint with US and UK headquarters, 258 employees recorded in October 2025, and a services-led base that already supports meaningful EBITDA before the software and autonomy thesis is fully realized.

Customer base

Blue-chip utility and energy accounts validate relevance in demanding environments, although concentration and attach proof still require underwriting discipline.

Transaction rationale

Buy a scarce infrastructure services-and-software wedge with visible revenue, then use sponsor capital to improve software GTM, pricing structure, packaging, and mix.

Founder-led, customer-embedded operating team.

Management credibility is rooted in long-standing utility and energy relationships, operating know-how, and delivery execution in critical environments. The principal augmentation need post-close is software GTM leadership so the business can package, price, and commercialize the software layer more systematically alongside the existing services base.

Location Denver, CO / Edinburgh, UK
Employees 258
Buyer pain Reliability, compliance, safety, downtime
Revenue model Services revenue plus software ARR, with software attach and recurring managed-service pathways
Customer profile Blue-chip utilities, energy operators, and demanding enterprise accounts
Market position Critical infrastructure workflow and asset-intelligence wedge, not a commodity drone vendor
Growth profile Software attach, analytics, autonomy, and selected account expansion
ARR mix
12%
FY27 visibility
80%
Adj. EBITDA margin
16.3%
Entry EV / EBITDA
11.3x
Lens Reference Multiple Value
Services EBITDA $5.0M current services EBITDA base 10.0x-12.0x $50M-$60M
Software ARR $6.0M ARR base 5.0x-6.0x $30M-$36M
Sum-of-the-parts Supports FY27 entry framing 11.3x at $95M $80M-$96M
The valuation lens separates the services underwrite from the software ARR value. That keeps the entry case anchored to a real operating base while still recognizing the strategic value of the software layer.
Equity capital $70M Funds acquisition and the near-term commercial and software GTM agenda.
PIK debt $25M Supports the structure while preserving operating flexibility.
FY28 refi path $30M Potential capital return and reinvestment bridge if milestones are met.
The structure is meant to preserve discipline. Control is funded up front, operating flexibility is protected through the value-creation period, and the refinancing path creates a clean milestone-based liquidity bridge rather than a pre-funded upside case.
Services revenue and software ARR by year.
FY Mix
Services ARR
Services ARR
FY23A
$16.2M $1.8M
FY24A
$24.1M $4.8M
FY25A
$23.1M $5.1M
FY26OT
$39.7M $6.0M
FY27E
$44.5M $7.6M
Services CAGR 35% FY23A-FY26OT; ARR CAGR 50% FY23A-FY26OT. Revenue mix is trending toward better-quality attach and managed-service pathways, but the main underwriting still rests on a proven services base.
Commercial proof

Project Helios has already been trusted by major utilities, energy operators, and sophisticated enterprise accounts in environments where vendor failure has real cost.

Market quality

The base business sits in non-discretionary spend tied to safety, regulation, asset integrity, wildfire mitigation, and infrastructure resilience rather than optional IT experimentation.

Downside support

There is a real services-underwrite beneath the thesis, so the entry case does not require investors to pay upfront for a full software transformation.

Revenue mix

Software ARR, software-first wins, and recurring managed-service pathways around DIAB create credible starting evidence for a cleaner revenue architecture.

Visibility

Roughly 80% of FY27 revenue is already contracted or highly visible, with approximately 3.5x pipeline coverage on the remaining 20%.

Execution fit

The value-creation path is commercial rather than scientific: software GTM, pricing architecture, packaging, and disciplined autonomy monetization.

What must be proven

Renewal pricing, repeatable software packaging, standalone software commercialization, recurring managed-service autonomy monetization, concentration mitigation, and sustained movement toward a cleaner revenue mix.