Ford Motor Co is investing US$182.2 million in San Francisco-based Pivotal Software Inc, underscoring the pressure automakers face to boost their technology platforms given the rise of connected and self-driving cars.
The investment in Pivotal, a cloud-software company which provides tools that make it easier for developers to build software, would help Ford boost its own software capabilities. As part of the deal, Ford and Pivotal are to jointly open labs in the US and Europe where their engineers are to work side by side.
While Pivotal does not make the software at the heart of self-driving car technology, Ford chief executive Mark Fields said he expected benefits from the partnership to flow to all product-development and information-technology teams at Ford, including those working on autonomous cars.
For example, Pivotal can help Ford speed up its software-development times, he said in an interview.
Ford’s investment, part of a US$253 million funding round into Pivotal, comes a day after Alphabet Inc’s Google and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said they would collaborate on creating autonomous minivans.
“This is not about catching up or one upping the competition,” Fields said. “We have had leadership in [autonomous vehicles] for some time now.”
Ford is on track for a fleet of 30 autonomous cars by year end, a Ford spokesman said, second only to Google’s test fleet of autonomous cars.
Software maker Microsoft Corp is also investing in the funding round for Pivotal, which had been considered an initial public offering candidate when this year’s market for initial public offerings looked more promising.
Pivotal’s tools are popular with software developers who use the Oracle-owned Java platform, so a tighter relationship with Pivotal could give Microsoft’s Azure cloud developer-tools service an advantage among that group, often software developers at big businesses.
Existing Pivotal investors General Electric Co, EMC Corp and VMWare Inc are participating in the funding round, which gives Pivotal a valuation of US$2.8 billion after the new cash infusion, a person familiar with the funding round said.
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