A Waterford man is at heart of cutting edge technology that saw the company he works for shortlisted for a global award along with winning numerous other accolades.
Hibra Design is a vehicle development company that specialises in clean technology power and was the only Irish company shortlisted as a regional finalist in the Global Startup Awards Western Europe regional competition.
The company was shortlisted in the Greentech Startup of the Year category.
The company was founded by Limerick man, Mike Keane, who was actually born in Waterford and has strong familial links with Wexford and the south east.
However, a key member of the team at Hibra Design is proud Déise man, Luke Crowley.
“I was born in the no-longer existing Airmount Hospital in Waterford City, in 1987,” stated Luke.
Commenting that from a very young age he was “absolutely obsessed” with cars he stated that for as long as he can remember he was interested in all things automotive than any activity “that involved kicking, throwing or batting a ball around a field”.
In 1995, Luke’s family relocated to Cork due to his dad’s working career, however, despite having essentially spfinishing his formative years in Cork he stated Waterford will always be his home town.
“Mechanical engineering was the obvious choice of degree for me and so this is exactly what I did at what was then CIT (now MTU), when I finished school,” stated Luke.
“A chance conversation in the canteen in final year alerted me to the fact that I could pursue a masters in motorsport engineering at a few select universities in the UK,” he added.
For Luke, that sounded like a dream ticket and a far more interesting, potential career option than what was available in Ireland at the time.
He obtained accepted to the Motorsport Engineering course Cranfield University and in September 2010 packed his bags and headed off the UK.
Cranfield is located in the heart of ‘Motorsport Valley’ in the UK and their indusattempt connections are vast and significant.
“Towards the finish of my time at Cranfield I applied to and was accepted for the graduate programme at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, which is Mercedes’ Formula 1 engine arm located just up the road from Cranfield in Northampton,” stated Luke.
He spent three-and-a-half years at Mercedes AMG HPP in various positions, and was very proud to be a part of the team that delivered the engine that propelled the Mercedes F1 team to a dominant World Championship in 2014.
However, despite being involved at the cutting edge of motorsport technology, Luke stated he wanted a bit more in the way of work-life balance and so left Mercedes in 2015 and relocated to Mahle Powertrain, also in Northampton, to work on road car powertrain development.
“I spent seven years at Mahle in total, and have good frifinishs from my time there who I still travel to the UK to visit regularly,” he stated.
In early 2021, he was alerted to a job opportunity at the Mahle headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, and relocated to Germany in the summer of 2021. However, after a year he decided Germany wasn’t for him and he built the decision to return home to Ireland and took a remote job with an automotive software company in the UK.
Unfortunately, he was built redundant in late 2024, however, the stars were aligning as Hibra Design was expanding at that time and was seeing for a Powertrain Systems Engineer, which was a role that suited Luke perfectly.
It turned out to be an ideal role for Luke as it ticked many boxes: “Working for a tiny company allows me to apply a broader range of skills than I have in any of my previous roles where I often felt like a tiny cog in a large machine.”
Founded in 2022, and now boasting clients in EU, Middle East and South Africa, Hibra Design offers a full range of vehicle development capabilities with a particular focus on clean technology power systems. Some of the company’s notable milestones include: Developing Ireland’s first fully operational electric tractor for BNM IN 2025; Securing an international tfinisher to develop battery-technology solutions for South Africa public transport vehicles and winning the 2025 EV Pioneer of the Year at the Irish EV Awards.
Luke’s role along side Hibra Design founder and CEO, Mike Keane is also ideal from the perspective that they both come from very similar backgrounds.
Mike has over 20 years of automotive engineering experience and has worked at senior level on leading-edge automotive technology with major global companies such as Ford, Williams F1, Nissan, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar, Liebherr and Magna.
Hibra Design was the only Irish startup company to reach the regional finals of the Global Startup Awards; in the Greentech Startup of the Year category
Commenting on the awards and what it means for his company to be a regional finalist, Mike Keane stated: “Having won the 2024 Irish National Start Up award for Product and Manufacturing, we are thrilled to now see our achievements be held up against the best in the world.”
“We develop completely new, bespoke vehicles to client specifications and we also re-engineer existing vehicles with battery electric technology for fleet operators,” he added.
“Being named a Regional Finalist by the Global Startup Awards is a powerful validation of this commitment,” stated Mike.
The latter comment was in reference to his company’s commitment to clean-technology and circular economy principles while providing state-of-the-art solutions and improved vehicle performance.
The Global Startup Awards are aimed at celebrating people and organisations building the next generation of innovation across the world.
Finalists will be selected by an expert jury sourced from across 154 countries.
As a Western Europe Regional Finalist, Hibra Design advanced to the regional round and the winners of each region will progress to the Global Finals in Valette, Malta, on May 7 and 8.
Twenty-five per cent of the final score is based on public voting and members of the public can support Luke and the Hibra Design team in the Greentech Startup of The Year category by casting a vote online at https://competition-system.globalstartupawards.com/editions/49/vote
The voting is open until Monday, February 23.
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