Our story

From a sheep, beef and deer farm to rocket science to the genetics operating system

Our founder grew up on a farm, earned a PhD in rocket science and spent years running genetic evaluations. Helical was built when breed societies told him they needed more.

Read the story Meet the team
Chapter 01 · Roots

Raised on a farm, at home in two countries

Our founder and CEO, Dr Dan Garrick, grew up on a farm in the Manawatū and moved to the US in 2002, where he completed high school, an undergraduate degree and a PhD. He became a US citizen in his years there, then moved home to New Zealand in January 2017. That is why Helical feels at home in both New Zealand and American agriculture.

I grew up on a sheep, beef and deer farm in New Zealand, but my family moved to the US when I was 13. I did my high school studies in Fort Collins, Colorado, where I spent my summers driving tractors, baling and raking hay around centre-pivot irrigators.

Dan Garrick, Founder & CEO
Chapter 02 · Engineering

From rocket science to genetic evaluation

Dan earned an undergraduate degree and a PhD in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University. Along the way he collaborated with the US Army and NASA, was an NSF Symbi GK-12 Fellow, and at Boeing worked on rotorcraft, including the V-22 Osprey. His PhD, funded by the US Air Force Research Laboratory, simulated fuel sprays inside supersonic scramjet engines.

The link to genetics is the mathematics. Rocket design solves the equations of fluid flow. Genetic evaluation solves Henderson's mixed model equations. Both are solved with the same kinds of numerical methods.
Dan Garrick standing beside a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor at the American Helicopter Museum
Dan with a V-22 Osprey, the tiltrotor he worked on at Boeing, at the American Helicopter Museum.

You might be wondering what overlap aerospace engineering, or rocket science, has with genetics. The answer is: while it's not exactly rocket science, it is very close.

 Rockets The Euler equations describe fluid flow ∂(ρu)∂t + ∇ · (ρuu + pI) = σκ∇φl Conservation of momentum, one of the equations behind a fuel spray simulation. The right-hand side is surface tension where fuel meets air. Livestock Mixed model equations estimate genetic merit X′XX′Z Z′XZ′Z + λA−1 bu = X′yZ′y Henderson's mixed model equations estimate the genetic contribution to performance.
Chapter 03 · Family

Genetics runs in the family

Dan's father, Prof. Dorian Garrick FRSNZ, is a statistical geneticist with a 40-year career as a professor at Massey University, Colorado State University and Iowa State University, where he held the Jay Lush Endowed Chair in Animal Breeding and Genetics. He also led the US National Beef Cattle Evaluation Consortium. In 2014 he co-founded Theta Solutions LLC, a US company, with Prof. Bruce Golden. Together they developed BOLT to run single-step evaluations, which combine pedigree, performance and genotype data in one analysis and produce breeding values for genotyped and non-genotyped animals at the same time.

Today Dorian is Helical's Technical Advisor, and his work in animal breeding informs how we think about genetic data.
Chapter 04 · 2017 · Experience

Running evaluations showed him the gap

After finishing his PhD in 2016, Dan joined Theta Solutions at the start of 2017 and went to work on BOLT. One of his first projects was the production release of the American Hereford Association's BOLT evaluation, which went live in December 2017. Over the next few years he ran genetic evaluations for several US cattle breed societies.

To deliver genetic evaluations for Theta's customers, Dan built a basic SNP database system. It stored SNP data and delivered it to the evaluations, enabled parent discovery, and allowed lab-agnostic storage and analysis of genotype data. Other breed societies adopted it, and it taught him how much more they needed.

There was no software solution out there for managing SNP genotype data and processing it to deliver into a single-step genetic evaluation. So I built one.
Chapter 05 · 2019 · The idea

One platform, ready for the next 30 years

The breed societies Dan worked with kept asking for more than evaluations: pedigree, performance, registrations, memberships and a full registry, in one place. For a long time he held off. Then he saw the wave coming. More animals are genotyped every year, and chips have grown from 7,000–10,000 markers to 100,000. Wearables, sensors and carcass imaging add more data still. Older systems were not built for it, and were not going to keep up.

By 2019 Dan could see that the volume of genotype data would need a new, modern architecture, and that a modular build would let every other function, from storage to the full registry, be added over time. That was the idea for Helical: a one-stop shop for a breed society's data, built to be ready for what is coming. It was another two years before the company was founded and the real work began.

There is a tsunami of data coming.
Chapter 06 · 2021 · Founded

A new software stack, built from scratch

In 2021 Dan founded The Helical Company in New Zealand. Helical is not a rebuild of the tools he worked on at Theta. It is a complete reimagining: a blank page, and a new system designed from the ground up to grow with breed societies for decades.

That approach runs through everything we do: the registry, the genomic data, the member tools, and now genetic evaluation, where we are building our own next-generation tools.

I sat down and looked at everything I'd learned over the prior couple of years to design and architect a system that would grow with our customers and their needs for the next 10, 20, 30 years.
Milestones

How we got here

 2016

A PhD in aerospace engineering

Dan completes his PhD in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University.

January 2017

Dan joins Theta Solutions

Dan joins Theta Solutions as a partner. He helps run genetic evaluations and develop Theta Solutions’ BOLT software, and immediately recognises the bottleneck that legacy database platforms create.

December 2017

American Hereford Association goes live on BOLT

The American Hereford Association goes live with automated weekly genomic evaluations on BOLT, powered by a genomic processing pipeline that Dan developed.

2018–2021

The pipeline grows, and so do its limits

Many other breed societies, genotyping laboratories and organisations begin to use the genomic processing pipeline. But its legacy architecture has many limitations, and delivering on Dan’s vision needs a complete rebuild from nothing.

2021

Helical is launched

The Helical Company is founded in New Zealand and starts building a new system from scratch, beginning with storing, managing and processing genomic data so it is ready for genetic evaluation.

2022

Genomic data, managed and automated

Helical’s genomic database is soon widely used for storage and management, with automated parent verification and discovery and lab-agnostic tools that let customers use one or more genotyping laboratories.

2023 Breed societies

Wagyu Feeder Check

The Australian Wagyu Association launches Wagyu Feeder Check, developed with CSIRO and Neogen. Helical delivers its test requests, results and parentage discovery for producers.

Wagyu Feeder Check2024 Breed societies

Simmental New Zealand

Simmental New Zealand becomes the first breed society to move its registry to Helical, adding registrations, transfers and member and public portals to its genomic database.

The Beef Country Podcast: Simmental New ZealandSeptember 2025 Breed societies

Angus New Zealand

Angus New Zealand goes live on Helical, and its breeders move their registrations, performance records and DNA testing to the platform.

Angus New Zealand: Helical is liveOctober 2025 Breed societies

Australian Wagyu Association

The Australian Wagyu Association goes live on Helical. A month later it launches its own genetic evaluation, with automated weekly runs enabled by Helical.

Australian Wagyu: Helical is liveAustralian Wagyu genetic evaluation launch2025–2026 Commercial operations

Large commercial operations come on board

Large, vertically integrated commercial farming operations begin to use Helical to manage all of their data. They include Focus Genetics, Consolidated Pastoral Company and Nindooinbah, along with Base Pair Genomics and several other commercial operations.

2026 Breed societies

Many more breed societies

Many more breed societies join Helical, including the Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society, the American Wagyu Association, the American Akaushi Association, Herefords Australia, NZ Herefords, Brangus Australia and the Canadian Angus Association. And many, many more are quietly moving to Helical behind the scenes.

Aberdeen-Angus: Welcome to HelicalAmerican Wagyu Association: Helical Registry2026 Research organisations

Researchers come on board

Research organisations use Helical too, among them CSIRO, Meat & Livestock Australia, Iowa State University and more.

 2021 Founded in New Zealand7+ Species40+ CountriesRotorua Headquarters
Chapter 07 · Today

Built for breed societies. Ready for everyone.
Dan Garrick speaking at a lectern at the WagyuEdge'26 conference, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre
Dan Garrick on stage at WagyuEdge'26. Photo: Australian Wagyu Association.

Today Helical is one platform for a breed society's registry, genomics, membership, insights and integrations. At its core, it manages genetic and genomic data, so it suits organisations of all types: breed societies, commercial farming operations, genotyping laboratories and research organisations. And it is shaped by the feedback we get from the people who use it.

 Built across species, so an improvement made for one customer reaches every customer. Delivers data to genetic evaluations, whichever provider runs them. Bootstrapped, and headquartered in Rotorua, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, with a small team that is growing fast.

Registry

Pedigree, performance and registrations.

Genomics

Genotype storage, parent verification and discovery.

Membership

Members, herds and member portals.

Insights

Dashboards and reports for staff and breeders.

Integrations

Labs, evaluation providers and member tools.

Genetic evaluation

Data delivered to evaluations, and our own next-generation tools on the way.
Chapter 08 · How we work

A tool in the toolbox

The breeder makes the decisions, and their feedback shapes what we build next.

Ultimately it is a tool in the toolbox. It is not going to replace the breeder by any means.

We love to get feedback on the system, whether it's good or bad, but especially if it's bad. The only way we can make the system better is if we know what people want to do with it.
When the data flows, the premiums follow

We are only just getting started

Talk to us about what your organisation could do with its data, or meet the team behind Helical.

Contact Us Meet the team