Akamai's $171 million purchase of Netli earlier this month is the latest in an industry-wide buying spree of 11 network acceleration and optimization startups for a total of $1.4 billion over the last two and a half years.
It began in June 2004 with Cisco's $82 million purchase of Actona and intensified over the next three years with Cisco, Akamai, Citrix and Juniper each buying two startups in this space. Overall, ten targets were venture-backed and all agreed to trade sales except for Riverbed, which completed a successful IPO last year.
Some remaining privately held companies playing in this segment include:
Expand Networks - Raised $48 million from mostly Israeli VCs
Deterministic Networks - Spun out of Gilat Satellite Networks in 2005
Silver Peak - Raised $42 million from Benchmark, Greylock and others.
Here's a table compiled by the Internet Research Group that shows the recent dealmaking activity in this space:
Tags: networking, akamai, m&a, vc, venture capital
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