Helium Issuer Nova Labs Agrees to Pay SEC $200K to Resolve Investor Deception Allegations
As part of the settlement, the SEC agreed to drop its findings that three Nova Labs tokens, including its own HNT token, were securities.
Author: Cheyenne Ligon | Edited by: Nikhilesh De Updated: Apr 10, 2025 10:43 PM Published: Apr 10, 2025 10:16 PM
Here's what:
- Nova Labs has agreed to pay the SEC $200,000 to resolve securities fraud charges without admitting or denying guilt.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Nova Labs of misleading investors by exaggerating its ties to companies such as Nestle, Salesforce and Lime.
- As part of the settlement, the SEC dropped its allegations that Nova Labs tokens were securities.
Nova Labs, the parent company of the Helium blockchain, has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $200,000 to resolve civil securities fraud charges brought against the company in January, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Nova Labs agreed to pay a fine to resolve allegations that it misled institutional investors in a funding round from late 2021 to early 2022 that raised $200 million in fresh funding at a $1 billion valuation. In its complaint, the SEC accused Nova Labs of misleading potential investors about a number of large corporate clients — including Nestle, Salesforce, and Lime — that it said were using Helium’s technology.
The SEC accused Nova Labs of repeatedly exaggerating the nature of its relationships with the three companies to attract investment, portraying them as customers and “users” of its technology. According to the complaint, Nova Labs’ actual collaboration with Lime, Salesforce, and Nestle was limited and mostly occurred before the launch of the Helium network in mid-2019.
For example, according to the SEC, Nestle’s level of engagement with Nova Labs was limited to testing some of the company’s hardware in its water delivery business in 2018, before Nova Labs got into cryptocurrency. The relationship with scooter maker Lime was limited to two in-person demonstrations of Nova Labs hardware to an audience of two Lime employees — one of whom soon left the company — in early 2019, the SEC said.
The SEC noted that both Nestle and Lime ultimately sent Nova Labs cease-and-desist notices, threatening legal action if it continued to use their trademarks and stating that they had no ongoing relationship with the company, as stated in the complaint.
In a settlement agreement between Nova Labs and the SEC, the regulator agreed to dismiss two additional claims that the company violated federal securities laws, including the sale of three of its tokens — Helium Network Token (HNT), Helium Mobile Network Token (MOBILE), and Helium IoT Network Token (IOT) — which the SEC classified as securities in January, according to a settlement agreement. Those claims were dismissed with prejudice, meaning the SEC is barred from bringing another case on the same allegations.
Nova Labs noted the agreement in a blog post on Thursday, calling it “a significant win for Helium and the People's Network.”
“With this deviation we can say with confidence that
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