Harbrick Goes West, Harvests Funds - Driverless Transportation

Burney Simpson

Autonomous driving technology is growing fast, and startups like Harbrick Technologies are growing with it.

The developer of the popular middleware plug-in PolySync has raised money, hired top technology executives, and moved to the West Coast, all in the last quarter or so.

Harbrick’s PolySync provides the ‘back end infrastructure’ for auto OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers as they build, test, and deploy driverless applications. Developers use the platform to reuse code “in a modular and seamless way.”

PolySync reduces costs and shortens product time-to-market for its users, according to Harbrick founder and CEO Joshua Hartung, who says PolySync “provides the platform for the future of DT,” (driverless transportation).

Going into the second half of 2015 Harbrick had grown to where it was partnering with microcontroller chip firm Renesas (fiscal 2015 revenues of $6.9 billion) to develop autonomous products that drew clients from around the globe. This video from Renesas DevCon 15 shows some of the work the firms were conducting.

It was time for the next step.

SEED FUNDING

First, Harbrick successfully garnered funding last November. Hartung wouldn’t name the funder but says it is an early-stage investor that wanted to “invest in a firm like us that innovates and disrupts.”

The money gives us “the kick we need,” Hartung said.

The investment paid in part for a move to Portland, Ore., from rural Moscow, Idaho. The company moved in January and officially began operating in Portland this month.

Moscow was great for a start-up but it was remote, and that meant a lot of remote workers.

“That’s not productive. We needed to move up a step,” said Hartung. The firm has brought on board several executives with a deeper background in autonomous technology.

The new Director of Engineering is Peter Brink, an 18-year Intel veteran who has been working on embedded systems. Hartung says Brink is assuring all Harbrick products meet ASIL – ISO 26262 safety certification for embedded auto software and hardware.

The new Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sale is Stephen Mitchener, most recently with Oracle. Prior to that Mitchener was with Intel Wind River, another embedded software house.

Harbrick is a spinoff of AutonomouStuff, the Morton, Ill.-based provider of autonomous components. The name Harbrick comes from a combination of the last names of Hartung, and Bobby Hambrick, the founder and CEO of AutonmouStuff.