Smartphone maker HTC has paid US$35.4 million for a 17.1 percent stake in mobile enterprise app platform company Magnet Systems, describing the transaction as a “strategic investment”.

In a statement, the Taiwanese company said that the alliance will bring “social, mobile and cloud capabilities to HTC’s portfolio of service offerings to its mobile enterprise customers”.

According to its website, Magnet’s goal is to “make it fast and easy to build business applications with social and mobile capabilities while reducing the overhead and complexity of traditional middleware”.

HTC noted that the Magnet team has “extensive experience in platform development for the enterprise market”.

It is headed by Alfred Chuang, a founder and former CEO of BEA Systems, the enterprise middleware company acquired by Oracle in 2008.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Magnet received US$12.6 million in funding early last year. The company’s website says its backers are Andreessen Horowitz, Bill Janeway of Warburg Pincus, and Chuang.