Hewlett Packard Pathfinder

Overview

Hewlett Packard Pathfinder is the corporate venture capital arm of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), focused on investing in expansion-stage enterprise technology startups in areas such as AI/ML, analytics, cloud, cybersecurity, and data centers.¹²³ It identifies category-leading startups, combines their technologies with HPE products to create validated solutions, and develops joint go-to-market programs to deliver business outcomes for HPE customers.¹² Pathfinder provides an external innovation lens for HPE, influencing partnership strategies and generating insights for business units.¹

History

Launched in 2015 as HPE's venture capital program.² It has invested over $300 million in 30 startups across enterprise technologies, achieving over eight successful exits and generating over $130 million in bookings in the last two fiscal years.² Pathfinder focuses on three core disciplines: insights, investments, and solutions, integrating startup innovations into HPE validated solutions to support customer digital transformations.²⁴

Notable Products

• DataRobot investment - Investment in company automating machine learning project pipelines for model management, governance, and deployment.
• Flywheel investment - Investment in company focused on data labeling for machine learning pipelines in life sciences.
• Tamr investment - Investment in company using machine learning and data science for insights to drive business decisions.

Reputation

Perceived as a strategic investor providing expansion capital and support to top-tier enterprise tech startups, with success in exits and integrating innovations into HPE solutions.²³ Professionals note its role in fueling HPE innovation and customer outcomes through startup partnerships.¹⁶ No major criticisms identified in available sources.