Harbinger acquires autonomous driving company Phantom AI
TL;DR
Electric truck startup Harbinger acquires autonomous driving company Phantom AI to vertically integrate technology and create new revenue streams. The acquisition includes a licensing deal with ZF Group for passenger car ADAS tech, while enhancing safety features for Harbinger's medium-duty trucks.
Key Takeaways
- •Harbinger's acquisition of Phantom AI marks its first acquisition, aimed at vertical integration and diversifying revenue beyond electric truck chassis.
- •The deal includes a licensing agreement with ZF Group to sell Phantom's ADAS technology to automakers for passenger cars, with significant revenue expected by 2027-2028.
- •Harbinger will integrate Phantom's safety features (like automatic emergency braking) into its medium-duty trucks, addressing a market gap where such features are currently lacking.
- •The startup recently raised $160 million from customers FedEx and THOR Industries, supporting its expansion into software services and energy storage products.
- •Phantom AI's team will remain in Mountain View, maintaining operations while deepening integration with Harbinger's existing use of their technology.
Tags
Electric trucking startup Harbinger has acquired autonomous driving software company Phantom AI, in an effort to vertically integrate more technology and create new revenue streams for the young company.
The acquisition, which is Harbinger’s first, is part of the startup’s plan to steadily expand its portfolio beyond the electric truck chassis it’s been building and selling for the last year. Just last month, Harbinger announced it would start selling its battery packs for energy storage and auxiliary power, with Airstream as the first customer.
Harbinger announced Wednesday it has already lined up a customer for Phantom’s advanced driver assistance tech that it just acquired. German automotive technology giant ZF Group has agreed to license that tech from Harbinger, and plans to sell it to automakers for use in their passenger cars. (Terms of the two deals were not disclosed.)
Harbinger co-founder and CEO John Harris told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview that he expects this new software services business line to generate “millions” of dollars in revenue this year, which he said is mostly “not material” compared to the amount the company will make from selling its truck chassis. The startup recently raised $160 million in a funding round co-led by FedEx and THOR Industries, both of which are customers.
Harris instead expects the ZF Group deal will bring in more significant revenue in 2027 or 2028.
“The passenger car market is slower, but the volumes are very, very large,” he said.
Harbinger was already using Phantom AI’s driver assistance tech, Harris said, and the acquisition will see the companies deepen that integration. Harris expects that to be a big win for Harbinger’s own customers.
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“Medium-duty [trucking] has a complete lack of safety features,” he said. “The majority of medium-duty vehicles on the road that have no backup cameras, no air conditioning, no lane keeping, no automatic emergency braking. It’s just not a thing that exists in the market yet, which is crazy.”
Harbinger already promises a lower total cost of ownership for commercial customers, better emissions compliance, and an easier truck to drive thanks to the simpler, quieter electric powertrain. But Harris thinks the safety features enabled by Phantom’s tech will make Harbinger’s chassis that much better — especially because of how and where they tend to be used.
“These vehicles, many of them are spending their time navigating around truck ports and pulling in and out of neighborhoods to deliver packages. They’re all in places where there’s a very high safety risk of backing into vehicles, hitting pedestrians, hitting bicyclists, hitting children,” he said. “We need to have, maybe not the cutting edge 2026 safety features, but we should at least have the safety features that were commodity in 2020 or 2015.”
While Harbinger’s headquarters are in Los Angeles, California, Phantom AI’s 30 employees — including its leadership team — will remain in Mountain View.