Pivotal Inc., a U.S. software company focused on the Web, has just bought Toronto’s Xtreme Labs Inc., its first acquisition.
On Oct. 2, Calif.-based Pivotal announced it was going to buy Xtreme Labs for an undisclosed price, reports Kara Swisher of All Things D. However, she added sources said Pivotal paid about $65 million for Xtreme, not including stock incentives for the startup’s staff of 300.
The move is slated to help Pivotal ease into the mobile space, since many companies are shifting to the cloud to manage their data. As more enterprise customers want to build mobile offerings, Pivotal wanted to acquire Xtreme Labs’ team to help on that front.
“We want to be a dominant platform for enterprise solutions and enterprises that want to communicate with consumers and offer them easy applications on all of the major platforms,” said Leo Spiegel, senior vice-president of strategic and corporate development at Pivotal, in an interview with Swisher.
“The next generation in the space requires that, so we are going to continue to look at lots of opportunities like this.”
Xtreme’s Amar Varma agreed, adding it was important for businesses to adopt a mobile-first strategy, which is why Xtreme has been developing products for that space already.
“There is a real change happening in the enterprise that requires expertise in mobile, social and big data, all driven by the move to the cloud,” he said in an interview with Swisher. “Consumers already experience this, but the bigger opportunity is to take it to businesses in a significant way.”
Pivotal started as a joint venture of EMC Corp. and VMware Inc.
Xtreme Labs, which was founded in 2007, made a name for itself as a mobile development and strategy company, building apps for Microsoft, Groupon, and other household names. Last year, Xtreme Labs landed a $20 million investment commitment from Chamath Palihapitiya from the Social+Capital Partnership.
