Originally published on HPE Newsroom.

IN THIS ARTICLE

• Remaining committed to the startup ecosystem, Pathfinder invested the highest amount of capital in its history and formed deeper partnerships with its portfolio companies in 2022
• Pathfinder is excited to look ahead to 2023 and anticipates continuing to invest in key strategic areas as well as widening its focus to new areas such as cost optimization, security and sustainability
• Pathfinder complements internal innovation by identifying leading startups which keeps HPE at the forefront of helping customers manage their digital transformations

With 2023 on the horizon, Hewlett Packard Pathfinder continues to ramp up its pace of investing and partnership activities to help solve challenges our customers face across edge, cloud, and data. We have been expanding our mandate into new technology areas as we continue pursuing our purpose to cultivate external innovation that supports Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s vision to become the leading edge-to-cloud company.

Our 2022 Accomplishments

We announced last year that we would accelerate our 2022 rate of investment. We saw active venture capital market activity in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, as we watched the market cool and companies scale down their investments, we at Pathfinder remained committed to investing and doubled down on helping our portfolio companies through partnerships. As 2022 comes to a close, I am pleased to share that we increased our investment and partnership capacity, allowing us to deploy the highest amount of capital in Pathfinder’s history and form deeper partnerships with our portfolio companies, despite the overall slowdown in venture activity.

Pathfinder maintains commitment to startup ecosystem, doubling down on partnerships despite slowdown

HPE Discover 2022, HPE’s annual edge-to-cloud conference, was back in-person this year allowing us to showcase some of our newest Pathfinder portfolio company partners – Alation, Ayar Labs, Classiq, Pachyderm, and TruEra. The Pathfinder Theater at HPE Discover provided an opportunity for HPE customers to learn more about the solutions that our portfolio companies can provide, such as app modernization, automating IT operations, data governance, and machine learning development. Our investments in these companies and other partners have proven how critical the connection between HPE and the startup ecosystem are in helping customers discover, manage, and protect their data.

2022 Highlights:

The Road Ahead

Looking to 2023 and beyond, we see enterprises wanting to accelerate their transformation efforts to offset rising costs and reinvent their business models. At Pathfinder, we are excited about the prospects for the year ahead and will continue to invest in key strategic areas like data services, AI/ML, enterprise applications, edge (5G), cybersecurity, and Cloud PaaS, among others. In addition, we will widen our focus to address new technology areas such as cost optimization and security and support HPE’s commitment to sustainability. We also anticipate increasing our engagement geographically to cultivate new emerging tech hubs.

This year alone, we have seen enormous strides in artificial intelligence and machine learning; however, we still believe the market for AI/ML is in its early stages and more exciting developments are yet to come, particularly in areas of generative AI and large language models. We will continue to engage in this market segment and expect to add more valuable partners in the year to come.

Cloud cost optimization is another area of criticality facing many of our customers. In the current macro environment, enterprises of all sizes want to reevaluate expenses and closely examine their IT budgets. Pathfinder can complement the HPE GreenLake platform in helping to identify best-of-breed partners. HPE GreenLake is HPE’s flagship offering that enables organizations to modernize all their applications and data, from edge to cloud. The as-a-service platform provides customers with an ability to drive digital transformation that can run on premises, at the edge, or in a colocation facility.

Organizations are also tasked with overhauling their approach to cybersecurity, recognizing that traditional approaches to security no longer apply. Pathfinder’s portfolio contains strong security partners, and in this dynamic environment, we continue to look for new opportunities and leading technologies that support the HPE GreenLake platform.

Sustainability

Pathfinder is also broadening our areas of focus to include sustainability as customers broadly seek energy-efficient IT solutions that accelerate their digital transformation and help them remain competitive in today’s economy. Pathfinder investment in startups that are additive to the sustainability landscape will help enable our customers to better understand and reduce their IT infrastructure emissions footprint and navigate increasingly complex reporting and disclosure requirements.

Partnerships That Benefit HPE Customers

Pathfinder complements internal innovation by identifying leading startups that keep HPE at the forefront of helping customers manage their digital transformations. It is especially important when the pace of data creation and consumption is exploding and when new requirements for how data is managed and protected are becoming standard to ensure privacy and compliance.

Pathfinder identifies leading startups that help HPE customers manage their digital transformations

Pathfinder investments build on the foundation of HPE GreenLake, helping customers modernize their infrastructure and drive the data-first digital transformation they require. HPE technologists vet Pathfinder partners’ solutions and help deliver them through the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform so that customers can benefit from a seamless data-management experience.

Created in 2015 to complement HPE’s internal innovation, Pathfinder is committed to investment choices that inform HPE’s strategy and give our customers more access to best-in-class, integrated solutions. The program invests in category-leading startups with the aim to bring value to both HPE customers and the startup ecosystem by providing strategic market insights, inventive solutions, and joint go-to-market programs.

In the year ahead, we look forward to adding to Pathfinder’s track record of investing in innovative technology companies that bring value to HPE customers.

If you like this article consider subscribing to our bi-monthly newsletter to get information about our portfolio, solutions, and insights delivered to your inbox.