German luxury car manufacturer BMW AG announced on May 2 that the company's BMW iVentures, its venture capital arm, will be investing in California-based startup Scoop Technologies, a company that offers smartphone-powered carpooling service. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The latest move from BMW is just one of the many investments the company is making in the tech industry, especially in startups whose business deals with transportation. After several years of uncertainty on whether to support on-demand transport companies, traditional carmakers are now racing to invest in what many analysts believe will be would-be disruptors of the traditional car market.

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Scoop Technologies is the developer and operator of Scoop, an application that connects people who live in the same part of a certain city or work near to each other. The application polls data feed by users to arrange carpools. Scoop is currently operating in the San Francisco Bay area.

Scoop is just one of several investments that BMW has made in ride-hailing, transportation services, and connected-vehicle ventures. BMW has also made investments in startups which the company claims to be related to "mobility."

Aside from BMW, other global automakers are also making a move towards the tech industry. Toyota Motors recently invested an undisclosed amount of money in ride-hailing leader Uber. On the same day, Germany automaker Volkswagen announced that it is also investing $300 million in Gett, a service widely held as one of Uber's biggest rivals, according to Auto Blog.

Earlier this year, General Motors acquired some stake in Lyft, another Uber rival. GM also announced that it is launching its own car-sharing and mobility venture under the new brand called Maven. Two major car manufacturers, Ford Motors and Daimler AG, have already unveiled their respective efforts as they embrace the idea of ride hailing, car sharing and related services, according to Reuters.

TagsBMW, BMW investments, Carpooling, Scoop, Uber, lyft, Gett, BMW news, BMW investment