He sold AppDynamics for $3.7 billion in 2016. Now he's back with a 'self-driving approach' to software development that has Alphabet's backing

AppDynamics

Harness founder and CEO Jyoti Bansal

• Former AppDynamics CEO and founder Jyoti Bansal announced that his latest startup Harness raised $60 million in Series B funding Tuesday. IVP and GV co-led the round, which valued the company at $500 million.
• Harness is an automated software deployment platform that allows engineering teams to automatically roll back changes that adversely affect site performance.
• Bansal said in a conversation with Business Insider that the stakes are higher now that every company is a technology company and engineers are expected to detect and act on issues with code changes.
• Cisco acquired AppDynamics for $3.7 billion in 2016 as Bansal prepared to take the company public.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After Cisco acquired AppDynamics for $3.7 billion in 2016, founder Jyoti Bansal was looking for the next big problem to tackle. So he started Harness, an automated software deployment platform that uses artificial intelligence to detect site latency and other performance issues.

Today Harness announced it raised a $60 million Series B funding round co-led by Alphabet's GV and IVP that valued the startup at $500 million, Bansal told Business Insider.

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"All customers we were serving with AppDynamics needed help with software delivery," Bansal told Business Insider. "Facebook and Google and Netflix and Amazon built infrastructure and platforms for their engineers, but Harness builds the platform for other companies that still rely on software innovation for their business."

Read More: Google's AI venture fund is leading a $3.85 million round into a startup that's trying to reinvent the industry for homeowners insurance

Bansal says that software developers for banks are under more pressure to commit flawless code changes and avoid negatively impacting end users. He says Harness uses artificial intelligence to learn the normal behavior of the app, say a mobile banking site, and will immediately roll back a change that results in abnormal app behavior.

"We are bringing a self driving approach to code changes," Bansal said. "Code robots and intelligent robots are watching and rolling [changes] back if needed. It's all automated and much more scalable and efficient and safer for the end user."

Bansal says Harness is growing two and a half times faster than his first company, and the addition of industry experts from this funding round will only help expand Harness' capabilities and markets.

"You have to be bold to go after a large hard problem that people think is unsolvable," Bansal said. "You have to build the best product in the market to do that, and you have to have the right long-term vision for the company. If you get those basics right, you are successful."

He went on to add "Not many people have built many successful companies. They are a lot of fun, but it takes time to try and do that."