Helicon Fireside Chat

Fireside Chat with Alex Niehaus, Co-Founder & CEO of Helicon

Helicon is building autonomous factories to industrialize composites that make up drones, rockets, robots, and aircraft. Traditionally, these parts take months of skilled hand layup to produce. Helicon pairs robotics with its Argos software, which turns a component design into molds, simulations, and a production plan, to cut that down to minutes of cycle time and weeks of lead time. The company came out of stealth in September with a $16.5M seed round led by AlleyCorp and is ramping production at its facility in the LA area. Alex co-founded Helicon after years building software that simulates and automates the physical world.

Join us for an conversation about that path: what he worked on before Helicon, why he and his co-founder went after composites manufacturing specifically, what it actually takes to stand up a factory from scratch, and what he's learned about hardware startups, fundraising, and hiring along the way.

Co-hosted with: Sigma Eta Pi, UCI FSAE Electric Racing, and UCI Rocket Project Liquids

🥤 Sponsored by Celcius

📍 ANTrepreneur Center, 233 Pereira Dr, Irvine, CA

Invite only and reserved for UC Irvine students — registration requires approval.

Please only register if you plan to attend; space is limited.