A senior executive from Daimler said Amazon and Microsoft are in talks about taking minority stakes in HERE, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“We are talking to Amazon, Microsoft and many auto makers,” said Thomas Weber, a Daimler board member in charge of research and development.

“We need a cloud provider to handle the huge amounts of data created by HERE and its users. We haven’t taken any decisions yet,” he added.

Daimiler co-owns the mapping service with Audi and BMW and has been looking for an investor with cloud expertise since purchasing HERE from Nokia last summer.

A report last week said Amazon was in talks with HERE about taking a stake but now the negotiations are confirmed.

It was known that since last year’s purchase the new owners had been approaching other firms about becoming investors, although the only names to become public were from the auto industry, such as Continental.

Amazon and Microsoft would both fit the profile of suitable backers for the German car markers. In addition to their technical prowess, both are also arch rivals of Google, about whom the car firms are nervous. They are scared about the search giant getting inside their vehicle and harvesting drivers’ data for its own ends.