Annual Business Review Template

2025

Helix Software

Annual
Review
2025

Prepared March 2026 · Confidential

Chief Executive Officer David Chen

ARR (End of Year) $1.24M

Letter from the CEO

To our investors and team —

2025 was the year Helix became a real company.

We ended the year at $1.24M ARR — up 68% from $738K — and crossed the $100K MRR milestone in December. We grew from 8 to 14 people. We raised $2.1M. We shipped four major product releases and watched our first enterprise customers prove that compliance teams at serious organizations would pay serious money for what we built.

But this letter isn't about the wins. I want to talk about what we got wrong, because that's where next year will be built.

We hired Customer Success too late. We watched our NPS dip to 42 in Q2 while our team scrambled to onboard customers that should have had a dedicated person from day one. We spent three months trying to crack healthcare — a vertical we weren't equipped to serve — before cutting our losses. And we underpriced our SMB tier to the point where the support burden made the segment unprofitable.

Each of those mistakes taught us something we've already baked into 2026 planning. We will hire CS at 80 customers, not 150. We will only enter new verticals when we have a champion customer ready to co-design entry with us. And we will price for the customer we want, not the one we're afraid to lose.

2026 is about moving upmarket. We have 12 enterprise customers today. We want 30 by December. That means building a real sales team, investing in integrations that enterprise buyers require, and making the product genuinely indispensable to compliance workflows — not just a nice-to-have.

I'm proud of what this team built in 2025. I'm more excited about what we'll build in 2026.

David Chen

Chief Executive Officer, Helix Software — March 2026

Year in Numbers — 2025

$1.24M

ARR (End of Year)

Was $738K in 2024 (+68%)

78%

Gross Margin

Best-in-class for B2B SaaS

210

Total Customers

Was 118 (+92 net new)

71

NPS Score

Up from 54 in 2024

$103K

Peak MRR (Dec)

First $100K+ month

8.2%

Annual Churn

Target was <10% ✓

12

Enterprise Customers

Was 3 in 2024 (+300%)

14

Team Members

Was 8, +6 new hires

MRR Growth — January to December 2025

$62K

Jan

$66K

Feb

$70K

Mar

$72K

Apr

$76K

May

$80K

Jun

$84K

Jul

$88K

Aug

$92K

Sep

$95K

Oct

$99K

Nov

$103K

Dec ★

Product Year in Review

• March

Audit Trail v2

Complete rebuild of the audit logging system. Introduced tamper-evident log entries, custom retention policies, and one-click export for compliance teams. Enabled our first SOC 2 Type II customer audit.

• June

SSO + SAML Integration

Native SSO via SAML 2.0. Required for every enterprise deal in our pipeline. Closed 4 enterprise deals within 30 days of shipping. Single most impactful enterprise feature of the year.

• September

API v3

RESTful API with full authentication, webhooks, and SDK support for Python and Node. Directly unlocked 3 enterprise integrations that were blocked on API requirements. Developer documentation shipped simultaneously.

• November

Custom Workflows

Drag-and-drop workflow builder for compliance processes. Allows teams to map their specific regulatory workflows without custom code. Now used by 67% of active customers within 30 days of launch.

47 total features shipped across 4 major releases · 2 legacy modules deprecated · 99.97% uptime

Team Growth

Name	Role	Department	Joined
David Chen	Chief Executive Officer	Executive	Founding
Maya Patel	Head of Engineering	Engineering	2024
Jordan Lee 2025	Senior Engineer	Engineering	Mar 2025
Priya Okafor 2025	Backend Engineer	Engineering	Jul 2025
Sam Rivera 2025	Product Designer	Design	Apr 2025
Marcus Wright 2025	Account Executive	Sales	May 2025
Lin Chen 2025	Customer Success Manager	Customer Success	Sep 2025
Aisha Obi 2025	Operations Manager	Operations	Nov 2025

Customer Story — Cascade Partners

Enterprise Customer Feature

"We'd been using a combination of spreadsheets and email chains for our compliance workflows. Helix replaced all of it in two weeks. Our auditors love it — the first time I've heard that."

— Head of Compliance, Cascade Partners

$14.4K

Annual Contract Value

First

Financial Services Logo

3

Referrals from This Account

Top 3 Wins of 2025

• ★

First Enterprise Customer — Cascade Partners

$14,400 ACV, and the logo that opened doors to financial services. Three referrals came from this one account. Enterprise customers have 94% retention vs 81% for SMB — the direction is clear.

• ★

$2.1M Raised in Q3

18+ months of runway means we can execute without fundraising pressure. Closed in 6 weeks with existing investors plus two new angels from the compliance space. Allowed us to make the 6 hires we needed.

• ★

API v3 — Unlocked Enterprise Pipeline

Three enterprise deals were stalled on integration requirements. We shipped API v3 in September and closed all three by October. Single fastest pipeline impact of any feature we've shipped.

Top 3 Mistakes & Learnings

• ✕

Hired CS Too Late

Onboarding suffered in Q2 — NPS dipped to 42 before recovering. We didn't hire our first CS person until 150 customers, which was too late.
Lesson learned: Hire CS at 80 customers, not 150.

• ✕

Healthcare Vertical Experiment Failed

Spent 3 months trying to enter healthcare without compliance expertise or a champion customer. Result: 0 deals, 0 pipeline, 3 months of distraction.
Lesson learned: Vertical expansion needs a champion customer first.

• ✕

Underpriced SMB Tier

The $99/mo plan attracted customers who churned quickly and required high support volume. Margin on the segment was near zero.
Lesson learned: Price for the customer you want, not the one you're scared to lose.

2026 Priorities

1

Expand Upmarket — 30 Enterprise Customers

We ended 2025 with 12 enterprise customers at $10K+ ACV. Target is 30 by December 2026. This requires better enterprise sales motion, stronger onboarding for large accounts, and features that serve compliance teams at 500+ person companies. CISO and Head of Compliance are the new buyers.

2

Build the Sales Team

Hire VP Sales in Q1, 2 AEs in Q2, 2 more AEs in Q3. Current pipeline is primarily inbound — we need structured outbound to reach enterprise buyers who aren't searching for us yet. VP Sales hire is the unlock for all downstream hiring.

3

Launch Mobile App — Tablet-First

Field compliance workflows require on-site access. Our current web app is not mobile-optimized. A tablet-first app built for audit inspections and field data collection opens a new use case category we can't serve today. Target: beta by Q3, GA by Q4.

Financial Summary — 2025

Metric	2024	2025	YoY Change
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)	$738,000	$1,240,000	+68%
Revenue Recognized	$612,000	$1,080,000	+76%
Gross Margin	72%	78%	+6pp
Monthly Burn Rate	$48,000/mo	$62,000/mo	+29%
Runway (End of Year)	11 months	19 months	+8 months
Total Customers	118	210	+78%
Enterprise Customers (>$10K ACV)	3	12	+300%
Annual Churn Rate	12.4%	8.2%	-4.2pp

Helix Software — 2025 Annual Business Review
Prepared by David Chen, CEO. March 2026. This document contains forward-looking statements and non-public financial information. Confidential — for investors and board members only.