Foxconn, an electronics contract manufacturer based in Taiwan and a known supplier to brands such as Apple, has made a strategic investment into Cyanogen, an open-source operating system maker, through a funding round.
Foxconn has been named as the lead investor in a Series C funding round, which was first announced back in March. Other participants in the funding round are Twitter, Qualcomm, Telefonica and Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp.
The Series C funding round was able to raise a total of $80 million, which brings the total funding received by Cyanogen to $110 million.
According to Cyanogen, the company will be looking to use the latest funds that it received to be able to attract more employees and make further developments on its operating system platform.
As of now, it is unclear how Foxconn, known to produce Apple components and devices and other consumer electronics for several companies, is planning to leverage the investment that it made in Cyanogen. It is also unclear why Cyanogen revealed only now that Foxconn is an investor in the company, when the funding round was first announced a couple of months ago.
The exact amount that Foxconn invested into Cyanogen is also unclear since, according to a spokeswoman from Cyanogen, the company does not reveal the individual amounts that it receives from its investors.
"Foxconn is a strategic investor as we continue to scale our commercial business globally," the spokeswoman told TechCrunch.
According to Kirt McMaster, CEO of Cyanogen, Foxconn and all other investors of Cyanogen are supporting the company in its lofty ambitions for mobile operating systems.
"We're evolving Android and creating an open computing platform that will change the way consumers interact with their mobile devices," McMaster said in the press release announcing the receipt of the strategic investment from Foxconn.
McMaster added that Foxconn and the company's investors and partners reflect the value chain for mobile devices, including mobile network operators, device manufacturers, third-party developers and chipset makers.
Cyanogen believes that its open OS platform will lead to a more open and level playing field for third-party developers and will enable experiences that are seamlessly integrated within the said operating system.
The company is looking to create an Android ROM business that will offer consumers and developers a version of the mobile operating system that will not include the heavy Google themes found in the mainstream Android versions.
