Fortive Corporation (“Fortive”) (NYSE: FTV) and Pioneer Square Labs (“PSL”) announced today that they have formed a joint innovation studio to create new companies from scratch in the industrial technology space. The goal of the joint studio is to create innovative new solutions and technologies that solve critical problems and opportunities for customers in these markets. New companies resulting from this work will either continue as standalone venture backed businesses or become part of the Fortive family.
“This is such an incredible opportunity for us,” said James A. Lico, President and CEO of Fortive. “The proven entrepreneurship of the PSL team, combined with our team’s expertise, creates a powerful partnership to bring breakthrough innovations to our customers. We are looking forward to the amazing things we will create together through this studio.”
“We continue to be focused on the future — innovating and positioning our businesses to realize organic growth opportunities — despite the challenging economic environment resulting from COVID-19,” Lico added. “This partnership with PSL is a critical component of our larger innovation strategy.”
The joint studio will be headquartered in PSL’s Pioneer Square offices in downtown Seattle. Fortive and PSL have appointed full-time employees across both organizations responsible for developing new ideas, validating concepts with potential customers, and executing and scaling the most promising ventures. For example, the joint studio team is currently exploring a concept that helps employees get back to work effectively and safely during the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution will make it easy for employees to self-report health symptoms and take appropriate actions, according to their company’s policies.
The joint innovation studio will actively recruit customer-obsessed entrepreneurs and team members, with a particular focus on professionals with expertise in industrial technologies, including sensing and the internet of things (IoT).
“We could not be more excited about this partnership,” said Greg Gottesman, Managing Director and Co-Founder of PSL. “PSL and Fortive share a common philosophy around innovation, which is fundamentally about testing everything you can, killing what doesn’t work, listening closely to customers, and leveraging data as a key part of decision making.”
“If you are an entrepreneur thinking about or wanting to work on ideas in the industrial technologies space, we might have a home for you in the studio,” Gottesman said.
ABOUT FORTIVE
Fortive is a diversified industrial technology growth company comprised of Professional Instrumentation and Industrial Technologies businesses that are recognized leaders in attractive markets. Fortive’s well-known brands hold leading positions in field solutions, product realization, sensing technologies, transportation technologies, and franchise distribution. Fortive is headquartered in Everett, Washington and employs a team of more than 25,000 research and development, manufacturing, sales, distribution, service and administrative employees in more than 50 countries around the world. With a culture rooted in continuous improvement, the core of our company’s operating model is the Fortive Business System. For more information, please visit: www.fortive.com.
ABOUT PIONEER SQUARE LABS
Pioneer Square Labs is a Seattle-based startup studio and venture firm that finances, creates and launches technology startups. For more information, please visit www.psl.com.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Statements in this release that are not strictly historical, including statements regarding innovation, development, separation and investment opportunities, ability to execute on innovation or investment strategies, anticipated benefits of the joint efforts, economic conditions, future prospects, shareholder value, and any other statements identified by their use of words like “anticipate,” “expect,” or “will” or other words of similar meaning are “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual results, developments and business decisions to differ materially from those suggested or indicated by such forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. These factors include, among other things: the duration and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, deterioration of or instability in the economy, the markets we serve, international trade policies and the financial markets, trade relations with China, the phase out of the London Interbank Offered Rate, contractions or lower growth rates and cyclicality of markets we serve, competition, changes in industry standards and governmental regulations, our ability to successfully identify, consummate, integrate and realize the anticipated value of appropriate acquisitions and successfully complete divestitures and other dispositions, our ability to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies on a timely basis and with the intended benefits, our ability to develop and successfully market new products, software, and services and expand into new markets, the potential for improper conduct by our employees, agents or business partners, impact of divestitures, contingent liabilities relating to acquisitions and divestitures, impact of changes to tax laws, our compliance with applicable laws and regulations and changes in applicable laws and regulations, risks relating to international economic, political, legal, compliance and business factors, risks relating to potential impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets, currency exchange rates, tax audits and changes in our tax rate and income tax liabilities, the impact of our debt obligations on our operations, litigation and other contingent liabilities including intellectual property and environmental, health and safety matters, our ability to adequately protect our intellectual property rights, risks relating to product, service or software defects, product liability and recalls, risks relating to product manufacturing, our relationships with and the performance of our channel partners, commodity costs and surcharges, our ability to adjust purchases and manufacturing capacity to reflect market conditions, reliance on sole sources of supply, security breaches or other disruptions of our information technology systems, adverse effects of restructuring activities, impact of changes to U.S. GAAP, labor matters, and disruptions relating to man-made and natural disasters. Additional information regarding the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in our SEC filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 27, 2020. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release, and Fortive does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200514005611/en/