Dive Brief:

• The new Hewlett Packard Ventures program is targeting startups to help the company reinvigorate its offerings and compete with its rivals.

• The program, also called Pathfinder, will help Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) make “cheap bets on promising companies,” according to Bloomberg.

• HPE’s venture capital arm is reportedly targeting startups focused on Big Data, security and the cloud.

Dive Insight:

HPE wants to gobble up some smaller, more nimble companies to better compete in the evolving corporate tech market and invest in new ideas and products.

“The purpose of this is for us to actually be in the market all the time, understanding the emerging technologies,” said Chief Operating Officer Chris Hsu.

Pathfinder intends to invest approximately $100 million this year on approximately 10-12 deals, according to Lak Ananth, managing director of the group.

HP has previously spent much larger sums buying tech companies in acquisitions that didn’t pan out. The new strategy may provide the company a new path forward without having to make such large investments.

“The stakes have gotten very high for them,” said Crawford Del Prete, an analyst with IDC. “It’s just a low-risk way to see if those companies play with where HP’s strengths are.”

HPE’s strategy could also serve to help freshen the company’s image. Customers want to know that the old guard has some new tricks up its sleeve. Other older tech companies, like Cisco and IBM, have recently been buying up startups as a way to refresh their product offerings and business strategies.