Sunny Sethi, founder of HEN Technologies, didn’t set out to revolutionize firefighting. But after a series of personal and professional pivots—from nanotechnology and solar energy to automotive materials—his journey led him to a quiet yet powerful insight: the firefighting industry, largely unchanged since the 1960s, was ripe for disruption. His breakthrough came during the 2019 wildfires in California, when Sethi was traveling during evacuation warnings while his wife and young daughter stayed home alone. Frustrated and alarmed, she told him, “You need to fix this, otherwise you’re not a real scientist.” That moment sparked a mission. In June 2020, Sethi founded HEN Technologies in Hayward, California, using National Science Foundation funding to conduct computational fluid dynamics research. The result was a fire nozzle that increases fire suppression by up to 300% while reducing water use by 67%. Unlike traditional nozzles that disperse water into ineffective droplets, HEN’s design controls droplet size and velocity with precision, maintaining a coherent stream even in strong winds. But Sethi sees the nozzle as just the beginning—the “muscle on the ground.” HEN has since expanded to monitors, valves, overhead sprinklers, and pressure devices, all embedded with custom circuit boards and sensors. Some units run on Nvidia Orion Nano processors, turning basic firefighting gear into smart, connected systems. The real innovation lies in the platform. HEN’s cloud-based system uses sensors at the pump to act as virtual sensors at the nozzle, tracking water flow, pressure, hydrant use, and weather conditions in real time. This data solves a critical problem: fire departments often run out of water due to poor coordination between suppliers and firefighters. During the Palisades Fire and past incidents in Oakland, pressure drops caused engines to lose water mid-operation—exactly the kind of failure HEN’s system prevents. The platform also enables predictive capabilities. It can alert crews that wind is shifting or that a fire truck is running low on water, using GPS and weather data. This aligns with the Department of Homeland Security’s NERIS program, which seeks to bring predictive analytics to emergency response. But as Sethi notes, predictive systems need high-quality data—and that starts with the right hardware. HEN has filed 20 patent applications, with six granted, and is building a data infrastructure to capture real-world physics in extreme conditions. Every deployment generates valuable data on water behavior, flow dynamics, and fire suppression—exactly the kind of multimodal, real-world data that AI companies building “world models” desperately need to simulate physical environments accurately. While HEN isn’t monetizing data yet, it’s laying the foundation. The company has already achieved strong traction: $200,000 in revenue in 2023, $1.6 million in 2024, and $5.2 million in 2024. It now serves 1,500 fire departments and projects $20 million in revenue this year. Its customer base includes the Marine Corps, U.S. Army bases, NASA, Abu Dhabi Civil Defense, and departments across 22 countries. It works through 120 distributors and recently earned GSA approval—a major milestone for government sales. The business model is built on recurring revenue: fire departments replace about 20,000 engines annually, and once HEN’s hardware is qualified, it becomes a long-term, data-generating asset. HEN’s team reflects its ambitious vision: software engineers from Adobe’s cloud infrastructure, NASA veterans, and former employees of Tesla, Apple, and Microsoft. Sethi admits he can’t answer every technical question—but he’s surrounded by people who can. Last month, HEN closed a $20 million Series A round plus $2 million in venture debt, bringing its total funding to over $30 million. Investors see the potential not just in firefighting gear, but in the unique, real-world data HEN is collecting. Sethi is already planning another fundraising round this year. For him, the goal isn’t just better fire suppression—it’s creating an AI gold mine, one fire at a time.