EDBI - the investment arm of the Economic Development Board - has joined in the latest US$42 million (S$57.4 million) funding round for DevOps (development operations) and automation company Puppet.

The round was led by Cisco Investments, and joined by Kleiner Perkins, True Ventures and VMWare.

In a statement yesterday, EDBI president and chief executive Chu Swee Yeok said that Puppet's automation and management platform helps manage and improve the efficiency of companies' IT assets and can help companies in Singapore realise productivity gains while ensuring compliance.

"Leveraging our network, we look forward to helping Puppet scale up its local talent pool to address the region's opportunities through its Apac Regional HQ in Singapore and to augment Singapore's digital transformation strategy," she added.

Puppet develops and maintains an open source and commercial platform for automating the delivery and operation of software, which it says has been adopted by more than 40,000 companies.

It said that by 2020, 90 per cent of the top 100 global companies will reduce operational inefficiencies through DevOps practices, and aims for its innovations to drive DevOps and automation gains for its customers.

The Portland, Oregon-headquartered company has offices in Seattle, Sydney, Timisoara (Romania) and Tokyo.

It opened its Singapore office in May last year and also designated it as the company's Asia-Pacific hub.

Puppet chief executive Sanjay Mirchandani said that the company's growth and international expansion were "testament to the rising demand for DevOps transformation, software automation and the pressing need for enterprises to navigate the new world of software delivery".