We are writing to inform you that Helm services will cease operation on December 30, 2022. We understand this may be surprising and disappointing and have some additional information below about why we are planning to shut down and what this means for you.
Why we are shutting down
We have been unable to overcome manufacturing and supply chain challenges brought on by Covid-19. In late 2019, we shifted our supply chain from Mexico to China in an effort to reduce cost and improve manufacturing scalability. At that time, we undertook designing and developing our v2 product.
With the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, our expected timelines to ship product more than doubled. Supplier issues further delayed getting enough inventory to meet demand and we are at a point where the business cannot continue sustainably.
We are currently searching for a suitable buyer for the company, but given the macro economic environment, we recognize this is not a likely outcome. If we cannot find a suitable buyer by the end of the year, we have made the difficult decision to shut down.
What this means for you
On December 30, 2022, we will be suspending the subscription service which means we will be stopping all security gateways, purging all encrypted backups and all DNS entries for primary Helm domains. As a Helm customer, it is critical that in the next 60 days you find an alternative solution for the email, contacts, calendar and file sharing services your Helm provides today and complete migrating your data.
After December 30, 2022, you will no longer be able to access your data on your Helm server through its domain. If you registered a domain through us and wish to continue using it, please contact support to get an authorization code for transferring your domain to another registrar before December 30, 2022.
We are working on a firmware update for Helm servers to be converted to Linux servers running Armbian. We will provide documentation for this conversion, along with pointers to some guides for running mail and file sharing services if you would like to continue using your Helm. We expect to make this firmware update available in the next 4-6 weeks.
Thank You!
We appreciate your support of Helm over the years. When we started the company in 2016, we had an ambitious vision to improve online privacy by returning control of personal data to the people. We have been heartened by the community of thousands of you who have joined us on this journey to make the internet more private and secure.
While we are deeply disappointed Helm will cease operating, we hope that you continue searching for and supporting more products and services that prioritize your privacy. The future of a healthy internet depends on people just like you.
If you have any questions about this, please check out our FAQ. If your question is not answered by the
FAQ, please contact support.
Thanks,
Giri and Dirk
