Sunny Sethi, founding father of HEN Technologies, doesn’t sound be pleased somebody who’s disrupted an business that has remained largely unchanged this capability that of the 1960s. His company builds fireplace nozzles — namely, nozzles that it says keep out fires up to a couple times faster than earlier merchandise whereas conserving two-thirds of the water. But Sethi is topic-of-truth about this fulfillment, extra centered on what’s subsequent than what’s already been performed. And what’s subsequent sounds loads bigger than fireplace nozzles.
His path to firefighting doesn’t apply a orderly story. After nabbing his PhD at the University of Akron, where he researched surfaces and adhesion, he founded ADAP Nanotech, an outfit that developed a carbon nanotube-based fully mostly portfolio and obtained Air Power Research Lab grants. Subsequent, at SunPower, he developed fresh materials and processes for shingled photovoltaic modules. When he landed subsequent at an organization called TE Connectivity, he labored on devices with fresh adhesive formulations to allow faster manufacturing within the automobile business.
Then got here a express from his wife. The 2 had moved from Ohio to the East Bay open air San Francisco in 2013. Just a few years later got here the Thomas Fire — the handiest megafire they’d ever see, they thought. Then got here the Camp Fire, then the Napa-Sonoma fires. The brink got here in 2019. Sethi modified into once traveling all the plot thru evacuation warnings whereas his wife modified into once dwelling alone with their then three-year-ragged daughter, no family stop by, going thru a skill evacuation account for. “She modified into once in actuality mad at me,” Sethi recalls. “She’s be pleased, ‘Dude, it be fundamental to fix this, otherwise you’re not a precise scientist.’”
A background spanning nanotechnology, solar, semiconductors, and automobile had made his pondering “bias free and flexible,” as he places it. He’d considered so many industries, so many different considerations. Why not are attempting and fix the difficulty?
In June 2020, he founded HEN Technologies (for excessive-efficiency nozzles) in stop by Hayward. With National Science Foundation funding, he performed computational fluid dynamics compare, examining how water suppresses fireplace and how wind affects it. The end result: a nozzle that controls droplet measurement exactly, manages velocity in fresh systems, and resists wind.
In HEN’s comparability video, which Sethi displays me over a Zoom name, the adaptation is stark. It’s the identical float rate, he says, however HEN’s sample and velocity support watch over support the traipse coherent whereas venerable nozzles disperse.
However the nozzle is appropriate the beginning — what Sethi calls “the muscle on the ground.” HEN has since expanded into displays, valves, overhead sprinklers, and strain devices, and is launching a float-support watch over machine (“Circulate IQ”) and discharge support watch over systems this year. Based mostly fully on Sethi, each machine comprises custom-designed circuit boards with sensors and computing vitality — 23 diversified designs that flip tiresome hardware into shipshape, linked tools, some powered by Nvidia Orion Nano processors. Altogether, says Sethi, HEN has filed 20 patent purposes with half of a dozen granted to this level.
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The precise innovation is the design these devices rep. HEN’s platform uses sensors at the pump to act as a virtual sensor within the nozzle, tracking exactly when it’s on, how powerful water flows, and what strain is required. The design captures exactly how powerful water modified into once customary for a given fireplace, how it modified into once customary, which hydrant modified into once tapped, and what the climate stipulations had been.
Why it issues: Fire departments can accelerate out of water otherwise, this capability that of there’s no conversation between water suppliers and firefighters. It took predicament within the Palisades Fire. It took predicament within the Oakland Fire a few years earlier. When two engines are linked to one hydrant, strain variations can mean that one engine without discover gets nothing as a fireplace continues to grow. In rural The united states, water tenders, that are tankers shuttling water from distant sources, face their have logistical nightmares. Within the occasion that they are able to integrate water usage calculations with their have utility monitoring systems to optimize handy resource allocation, that’s a broad gain.
So HEN built a cloud platform with utility layers, which Sethi likens to what Adobe did with cloud infrastructure. Mediate Particular person à la carte systems for fireplace captains, battalion chiefs, and incident commanders. HEN’s design has climate data; it has GPS in all devices. It goes to warn those on the front strains that the wind is able to shift and so they’d better pass their engines, or that a explicit fireplace truck is working out of water.
The Division of Say of birth Security has been asking for exactly this model of design thru its NERIS program, which is an initiative to bring predictive analytics to emergency operations. “But you will most probably be in a position to’t beget [predictive analytics] unless you would moreover beget correct quality data,” Sethi notes. “That you just can’t beget correct quality data unless you would moreover beget the correct hardware.”
If building a predictive analytics platform for emergency response sounds daunting, Sethi says the truth is selling it is more durable, and he’s proudest of HEN’s traction on that front.
“The hardest section of creating this company is that this market is disturbing this capability that of it’s a B2C play in case you have faith you studied of convincing the possibilities to purchase, however the procurement cycle is B2B,” he explains. “So you would moreover must in actuality put a product that resonates with of us — with the head user — however you proceed to must plow thru govt purchasing cycles, and we beget cracked each of those.”
The numbers endure this out. HEN launched its first merchandise into the market within the 2d quarter of 2023, lining up 10 fireplace departments and producing $200,000 in income. Then discover started to unfold. Income hit $1.6 million in 2024, then $5.2 million closing year. This year, Chicken, which within the intervening time has 1,500 fireplace division possibilities, is projecting $20 million in income.
HEN has competitors, the truth is. IDEX Corp, a public company, sells hoses, nozzles, and displays. Machine companies be pleased Central Square serve fireplace departments. A Miami company, First Due, which sells software to public safety companies, announced a huge $355 million round closing August. But no company is “doing exactly what we are making an strive to whole,” insists Sethi.
Both plot, Sethi says that the constraint isn’t take a look at — it’s scaling rapid ample. HEN serves the Marine Corps, US Army bases, Naval atomic labs, NASA, Abu Dhabi Civil Protection, and ships to 22 worldwide locations. It in actuality works thru 120 distributors and never too long ago qualified for GSA after a year-long vetting route of (that’s a federal seal of approval that makes it simpler for navy and govt companies to purchase).
Fire departments purchase about 20,000 fresh engines yearly to replace rising older tools in a nationwide rapid of 200,000, so once HEN is qualified, it turns into habitual income (is the foundation), and this capability that of the hardware generates data, income continues between purchase cycles.
HEN’s twin aim has required building a extraordinarily particular team. Its software lead modified into once beforehand a senior director who helped function Adobe’s cloud infrastructure. Assorted members of HEN’s 50-person team encompass a light NASA engineer and veterans from Tesla, Apple, and Microsoft. “When you happen to quiz me technical questions, I wouldn’t be in a position to answer to all the pieces,” Sethi admits with fun, “however I even beget such correct groups that [it] has been a blessing.”
Certainly, it’s the software that hints at where this gets engaging, this capability that of whereas HEN is selling nozzles, it’s collecting something extra precious: data. Highly particular, precise-world data about how water behaves beneath strain, how float charges beget interaction with materials, how fireplace responds to suppression ways, how physics works in active fireplace environments.
It’s exactly what companies building so-called world items need. These AI systems that rep simulated representations of physical environments to predict future states require precise-world, multimodal data from physical systems beneath vulgar stipulations. That you just can’t tell AI about physics thru simulations alone. You wish what HEN collects with every deployment.
Sethi obtained’t account for, however he knows what he’s sitting on. Companies coaching robotics and predictive physics engines would pay handsomely for this model of precise-world physics data.
Investors see it, too. Closing month, HEN closed a $20 million Series A round, plus $2 million in endeavor debt from Silicon Valley Bank. O’Neil Strategic Capital led the financing, with NSFO, Tanas Capital, and z21 Ventures taking allotment. The round brought the corporate’s total funding to larger than $30 million.
Sethi, within the meantime, is already taking a peek ahead. He says the corporate will return to fundraising within the 2d quarter of this year.