HighByte, an industrial software company based in Portland, today announced the close of a seed financing round that will fuel its next phase of growth.
The fully subscribed round provides $3.5 million of new capital to the company as it continues to sell its industrial data-operations software product into the a number of manufacturing verticals. Funds will be primarily allocated across R&D, sales, marketing, and customer success to accelerate market penetration and expand deployments within existing accounts, according to the company.
“In the past 12 months, we’ve proven product-market fit across a wide variety of vertical markets including pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, paper and packaging, and industrial products,” said HighByte CEO Tony Paine. “Now it’s time for us to put our foot on the gas pedal. This investment validates our mission and is essential for the next stage of our growth.”
First released in January 2020, HighByte’s industrial data-operations software product, which it calls HighByte Intelligence Hub, has now been deployed in 10 countries by dozens of major manufacturers with multi-plant facilities.
The family offices of Seth and Cindy Lawry and Soren and Caroline Oberg led the company’s seed round. Seth Lawry and Soren Oberg were previously long-time partners at Thomas H. Lee Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. CEI Ventures, Maine Venture Fund, Momenta Ventures, and several angel investors, also contributed to the round.
“HighByte is developing DataOps software to significantly advance industrial operations effectiveness, helping a single manufacturing site or the entire enterprise better utilize its vast data sets for improved efficiency and outcomes,” Seth Lawry said in a statement. “Customers have resoundingly validated HighByte’s value proposition. We are excited to partner with HighByte’s talented and experienced management team—who previously built Kepware’s successful industrial automation software solution—to drive HighByte’s continued growth.”
Data operations, or DataOps, is the orchestration of people, processes, and technology to securely deliver trusted, ready-to-use data to all the systems and people who require it. HighByte Intelligence Hub enables manufacturers to merge, prepare, and deliver modeled industrial data to and from IT systems without writing or maintaining code.
“We are incredibly excited to be a part of HighByte’s future,” said Chandler Jones, managing director of CEI Ventures. “The HighByte team is uniquely positioned to understand what customers need to enable digital transformation in industrial manufacturing.”
Paine and his HighByte co-founders, Torey Penrod-Cambra and John Harrington, were all former employees of Kepware Technologies, a Portland-based company that also builds industrial software. Kepware was acquired by PTC Inc. in January 2016.
Prior to the series seed raise, HighByte funded the company through founder contributions, state and federal grants, and convertible debt, which was converted into preferred stock at the close of the round.
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