Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturer HTC will invest $35.4m in the series B round for US-based enterprise applications start-up Magnet Systems. HTC will own 17.1% of Magnet after the investment.
The announcement came at the same time that HTC said that it took a $40m hit on cloud-based gaming start-up OnLive after the games company had a sudden restructuring of assets over the weekend which HTC said on their website was “due to lack of operating cash and an inability to raise new capital”.
Magnet Systems raised a $12.6m A round from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz in April last year after the start-up’s founder and founder, Alfred Chuang, sold his previous company, enterprise software provider BEA Systems, to database propvider Oracle in 2008 for $8.5bn.
HTC said: “The investment will bring social, mobile, and cloud capabilities to HTC’s portfolio of service offerings to its mobile enterprise customers. The leading-edge social, mobile and cloud technologies at the heart of Magnet’s platform make it an ideal foundation for the applications and services that enterprises will be buying and building in the coming years.”
According to news provider TechCrunch, HTC is looking to diversify its range into enterprise applications and cloud-based solutions after having its Android thunder stolen away by Samsung. The company reported revenues down 27% to $3 billion, and profits down by 57% in the last quarter, and has lowered its expectations for the third quarter.