Helsing vs Celonis

By valuation, Celonis is the larger company at $13B versus $12B — a 1.1x difference. Size can also be measured by team: Helsing employs 100-500 people while Celonis has 1000+ employees.

Celonis has raised more in total funding at $2B, compared to Helsing's $1.6B — a gap of $420M. Combined, the two companies have completed 4 known funding rounds.

Celonis leads with an Awaira Score of 90/100, while Helsing sits at 68/100. That 22-point gap reflects real differences in funding, scale, and traction — it's not a vanity metric.

Helsing was founded by Gundbert Scherf in 2021. Celonis was founded by Alexander Rinke in 2011. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Helsing: Helsing develops AI software for defence and intelligence applications, building real-time signal processing and sensor fusion systems that enhance situational awareness for military operators across air, land, and electronic warfare domains. The Munich and London company applies deep learning to radar, sonar, and other sensor data streams to identify threats, classify targets, and support human decision-making in time-critical operational environments. Helsing has secured contracts with the German Bundeswehr and other NATO member defence ministries, providing AI-enhanced signal processing modules that integrate with existing military sensor infrastructure. The company has attracted substantial funding from investors including General Catalyst, Accel, Lightspeed Ventures, and Prima Materia (Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek's firm), making it one of the most well-funded European defence technology companies. Helsing operates in the European defence AI market, which has expanded rapidly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine as NATO governments accelerated defence modernisation spending and AI integration into military systems. The company competes with Palantir, Anduril, and Shield AI in the broader defence AI space while occupying a specifically European market position that addresses sovereignty concerns about deploying US-based AI systems in sensitive military applications. Helsing's explicitly European identity and compliance with EU data handling requirements give it access to defence contracts where non-European vendors face security vetting barriers. Celonis: Celonis builds a process mining and execution management platform that uses machine learning to extract, visualise, and optimise business processes from event log data in enterprise systems including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and ServiceNow. The Munich company platform connects to enterprise software transaction records, reconstructs actual business process flows from data, identifies inefficiencies and compliance deviations, and provides AI-powered recommendations for process improvement.\n\nThe company raised approximately $1.4 billion including a $1 billion Series D round in 2021 from investors including Arena Holdings, Durable Capital, and T. Rowe Price, valuing it at $13 billion and making it one of Germany most valuable private technology companies. Celonis counts over 1,000 enterprise clients including Siemens, Uber, 3M, and Vodafone, with large deployments across order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and accounts payable processes generating measurable working capital improvements and operational cost reductions.\n\nCelonis created the process mining software category and competes against SAP Signavio, IBM Process Mining, and Minit in a market it largely invented. The company has expanded from analytical process mining tools into execution management, embedding AI recommendations directly into enterprise workflows rather than producing reports for human review. This execution layer differentiates Celonis from pure analytics vendors and creates a stickier product that becomes embedded in operational processes rather than consumed as a standalone analysis tool.

Celonis got there first, launching in 2011 — that's 10 years of extra runway. Helsing didn't arrive until 2021. In AI, that kind of head start means more training data, deeper customer relationships, and a bigger talent moat.

Helsing has about 100-500 employees; Celonis has about 1000+. A bigger team usually means more revenue or heavier VC backing, but in AI, small teams can build at massive scale.

Yes — they're direct rivals. Both Helsing and Celonis compete in Enterprise AI, targeting many of the same buyers. If you're evaluating one, you should be looking at the other.