Trace Machina, a startup focused on improving the safety of critical software updates, has received US$4.7m seed investment to develop simulation software designed to help developers test updates in more realistic simulated environments, particularly for autonomous systems such as self-driving cars and warehouse automation equipment.
The need for such a platform was highlighted recently when a faulty CrowdStrike update disrupted critical infrastructure, including airports and hospitals. Marcus Eagan, CEO and co-founder of Trace Machina, explained that his company’s system aims to prevent similar incidents by enabling more rigorous testing before software is deployed in real-world applications.
“The way we solve that is by providing a native link between developers and their autonomous vision,” Eagan said, referring to the company’s first product, NativeLink. This tool, built in Rust, gives engineers the ability to run experiments and tests directly on local hardware.
NativeLink is designed to simulate resource-constrained environments, such as embedded Nvidia GPU chips, which are commonly used in robots, self-driving cars and edge devices. Eagan pointed out that previously, only well-funded companies had the means to build such testing environments. Trace Machina’s platform aims to make these capabilities accessible to a broader range of companies, aiming to conduct thorough testing with direct hardware access.
“There’s always been this virtualized layer, this abstraction layer, that made it easier for companies to build those systems and iterate. We just had to pay the tax of being close to the metal,” Eagan said, describing the challenges of developing such a system.
The seed funding round was led by Wellington Management, with participation from Samsung Next, Sequoia Capital Scout Fund, Green Bay Ventures, Verissimo Ventures and several other prominent industry players.