Editor's note: This year we honored some of the brightest young minds in the Bay Area innovation sector as part of our Inno Under 25 feature. Check out all the profiles from this year's honorees here.
Helena Merk was born in Germany but grew up in Palo Alto, amid some of the country’s greatest entrepreneurs. She learned to code after her father made an offer: If she wanted an iPhone at the age of 13, she would have to learn to make some apps for it first. She dropped out of college from Duke University as a sophomore to work at the software company Smartcar, where she built the confidence to start her own company. Spirals is the second startup she founded. The first was Glimpse, part of a Y Combinator cohort that was bought by a direct competitor. Now she is combining her love of computer science and the environment by attempting to leverage financial mechanisms of cryptocurrency for the good of the climate.
Helena Merk
- Age: 23
- Residence: San Francisco
- Education: Duke University (dropped out)
- Role: CEO and founder of Spirals
- What the company does: Blockchain protocol that allows users to earn carbon credits by staking their cryptocurrency
- Funding: Undisclosed
What was it like raising funds amid a turbulent period for crypto? The market was collapsing the week we were raising. When the stable coin became unstable, the lunar coin, we literally had a call that morning from our investor and they were like, “Actually, let’s cancel the call. All of our portfolio companies have been affected.” But eventually we were able to raise our pre-seed with no problem from great investors.
What are your thoughts on your generation? I don’t think I really felt at home until joining the startup world. And maybe that was just the age group I was around, where people were in life, their priorities. I don’t think my priorities were ever similar to the people I was surrounded by, until I left college and started a company before in the real world. Now I don’t think I have friends my age, and if I do, they’re usually similar dropout founders.
How many hours a week do you work? It depends on when you ask. I think right now, we’re working right from around like 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. at least. And then the weekends are lighter. We’re probably doing 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Describe one of your mentors. My former boss, the founder of Smartcar, he had also dropped out of college, UC Davis. I’d started there as an intern, thinking I was just going to take a leave of absence. And a few weeks in I got a full time offer and everything felt very correct. He’s mentored me for years since then, and has been super supportive. It’s kind of cool to have had someone go through similar experiences, just like a few years apart.
