Helios AI Launches Global Hunger Exposure Index With $3M Strategic Investment From W23 Global

New index reveals where climate, trade and geopolitical shocks could trigger the next food crisis

TYSONS, VA, UNITED STATES, September 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Helios AI, the leading AI agricultural commodity intelligence platform, today launched the Hunger Exposure Index, a first-of-its-kind global ranking measuring countries’ vulnerability to future climate, trade, and geopolitical shocks. The index was published as part of a new report titled, “Who Can Withstand the Next Food Shock?”, released ahead of Climate Week NYC.

The launch comes as Helios AI secures a $3 million strategic investment from W23 Global, the venture capital fund backed by Tesco, Ahold Delhaize, Woolworths Group, Shoprite Group and Empire Company Limited. Helios AI will use the investment to expand its predictive food and agricultural intelligence and help more businesses, governments and humanitarian organizations anticipate threats to food availability, pricing and supply.

The index reveals a troubling paradox: the world is producing record quantities of food, yet hundreds of millions of people continue to face acute hunger. The problem is not simply whether enough food exists. It is whether countries can afford to replace lost crops, secure fertilizer and energy, and absorb disruptions to critical trade routes.

HEI shows where those buffers are thinnest and where the next shock could have the most severe consequences.

“A failed harvest is survivable if a country can buy the difference on the global market, but it becomes catastrophic when it can’t,” said Francisco Martin-Rayo, Co-Founder and CEO, Helios AI. “The Hunger Exposure Index shows where the combination of climate risk, import dependence and weak financial buffers could turn the next disruption into a much larger humanitarian crisis.”

Helios AI is also welcoming global food security leader Helga Flores Trejo to its leadership team as Senior Advisor to the CEO. Flores Trejo will help the company expand its work with governments, humanitarian organizations and global food businesses.

A new measure of food-system vulnerability

The Hunger Exposure Index ranks countries on a scale from zero to 100 based on four weighted pillars:
– Climate risk to the country’s cropping calendar
– Fertilizer and energy exposure connected to the Persian Gulf
– Foreign exchange constraints, including whether the country can afford to purchase food it does not grow
– Cereal import dependence, adjusted for the severity of existing hunger
– Countries scoring 70 or higher are classified as facing Critical exposure, while those scoring between 50 and 69 are classified as Elevated.

The index is built around a simple principle: a country’s exposure depends on the severity of a shock relative to the strength of its financial and agricultural buffers. One of the most important measures is import cover, or the number of months of imports a country’s foreign exchange reserves can finance. When that buffer falls below roughly six weeks, a country may be unable to replace food lost to a failed harvest or interrupted trade route.

Most inputs used in the index come from independently verifiable public sources, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Agriculture Organization, International Monetary Fund,Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and Famine Early Warning Systems Network. Helios AI’s proprietary climate-risk and yield-forecasting models provide additional country and crop-level analysis.

Record harvests prevented a 2026 price crisis, but the risks remain

The report examines the climate and agricultural disruptions of the past year and finds that record production helped contain global food prices in 2026, even as the underlying food system became more fragile.

Following the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, the FAO Food Price Index rose from 125.5 in February to 131.1 in July, an increase of approximately 4.5 percent. That was considerably less than the double-digit shock many observers anticipated.

“Strong harvests absorbed much of the immediate impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure earlier this year,” said Francisco Martin-Rayo, “but the geopolitical, financial, and logistical pressures affecting the food system did not disappear. Food reserves, alternative trade corridors and the ability to redirect supply are no longer simply operational considerations. They are national-security assets.”

Why the larger bill may arrive in 2027

The report also examines the El Niño event now developing and its potential effect on agriculture in 2026 and 2027.

Helios AI cautions against treating a strong El Niño as an automatic global crop failure. Its impact will depend on the crop, growing region, timing and condition of the food system it reaches. However, El Niño could amplify pressures already building across vulnerable markets. Much of the 2026 harvest was determined before the event’s expected peak. The 2027 crop will develop amid its aftermath and a continuing fertilizer-affordability squeeze.

“The greatest risk is not any single climate event, conflict or trade disruption,” said Martin-Rayo. “It is the accumulation of shocks in countries that have little capacity left to absorb them. The harvests of 2026 gave the world time, but they did not solve the underlying problem.”

The report identifies several forces likely to shape food security over the coming year:

– Greater food production is not translating into greater food security. Conflict, import dependence, foreign exchange constraints and limited financial buffers determine whether countries can access the food available on global markets.
– Take Nigeria. Millions of people there face acute hunger, yet of the 47 countries scored it is the least exposed. The reason is simple: Nigeria can pay for about seven months of food imports. Zimbabwe can pay for about two weeks. South Sudan, less than one week. That gap is what decides whether a bad harvest becomes a crisis.
– Routes that bypassed the Strait of Hormuz absorbed much of the diverted volume, concentrating the region’s food supply on a smaller set of corridors.
– In April 2026, Saudi Arabia and Oman were the only Gulf states whose imports exceeded the previous year’s levels. Both have major ports that bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
-Strong harvests prevented the global food-price crisis anticipated in early 2026, but they did not resolve the geopolitical and supply-chain risks behind it.
-El Niño could amplify existing vulnerabilities, but its agricultural effects will vary considerably by crop, region and timing.
– Across 32 country-and-crop combinations analyzed, 27 showed no statistically significant relationship between the strength of El Niño and the scale of crop damage.
– The most significant agricultural consequences are likely to emerge in 2027, when crops will grow through the climate aftermath and current fertilizer-affordability pressures.

Expanding access to early warning intelligence

W23 Global’s $3 million investment will help Helios AI expand its predictive commodity intelligence, giving food retailers earlier visibility into threats to supply, availability and pricing.

“Helios’ predictive commodity intelligence enables retailers to act before supply and price risk reaches the market,” said Ingrid Maes, CEO and CIO of W23 Global. “As climate risk, geopolitical disruption and shifting trade flows make commodity availability and pricing increasingly difficult to predict, earlier visibility into emerging risks helps retailers secure supply, manage cost pressures and ultimately protect availability and prices for customers.”

The same early-warning intelligence has applications beyond retail. As Senior Advisor, Flores Trejo will guide Helios’s work with governments, humanitarian organizations and global food businesses, drawing on her experience across geopolitics, food security, climate finance and emerging technologies.

“The Hunger Exposure Index helps close a critical gap in how the world understands food insecurity,” said Flores Trejo. “Knowing how many people are hungry today is essential. But preventing the next crisis requires us to identify where a new disruption could overwhelm the systems people depend on. That is what this index is designed to reveal.”

The full report, along with the global Hunger Exposure Index map is available here.

ABOUT HELIOS AI
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Tysons, VA, Helios AI is the first AI-powered agricultural commodity intelligence platform built to integrate climate risk, price forecasting, and real-time disruption monitoring in one place. The platform covers 80+ commodities across 100+ countries, and is trusted by leading global food and agriculture companies. Backed by W23 Global, S&P Global, Collide Capital, and others, Helios AI is on a mission to give supply chain teams the foresight they need to protect margins and secure supply.

ABOUT W23 GLOBAL
W23 Global is a global grocery retail venture capital fund backed by five leading grocery retailers: Tesco (UK, ROI, Europe), Ahold Delhaize (US, Europe, Indonesia), Woolworths Group (Australia, New Zealand), Shoprite Group (Africa), and Empire Company Limited/Sobeys Inc. (Canada). W23 Global invests in innovative start-ups and scale-ups deploying technology to transform grocery retail, and address the sector’s sustainability challenges.

Meg Sinclair
A/M Partners for Helios
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