Communication technology company Ericsson acquired a majority stake in US-based cloud computing company Apcera on Monday.
Although the price paid by Ericsson was not disclosed, GigaOM has reported that it was one of the largest ever made in an IT platform company.
Apcera is the developer of Continuum, a platform that works across cloud, on premise and hybrid environments, which it took the opportunity to launch this week.
The acquisition will see Apcera continue to operate as a standalone company with Ericsson investing ‘significant funding’. Ericsson plans to add Apcera’s platform as-a-service technology to its own cloud system.
The deal will see Ericsson fund the development of new technology as well as sales channel and ecosystem creation.
Derek Collison, founder and chief executive of Apcera said: “We welcome Ericsson’s backing. With a history of transforming the world’s most demanding businesses and the global ability to deploy and scale critical infrastructure, Ericsson will enable us to accelerate our innovation of Continuum and provide enterprises the next-generation platform that enables them to achieve a significantly faster time-to-market as they deploy, orchestrate and govern a diverse set of workloads, both on premise and in the cloud.”
Apcera had previously raised close to $7m in funding since being founded in 2012, from investors including internet company Rakuten, True Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz and Data Collective.