Content Delivery Network (CDN) company Akamai has acquired select assets from its bankrupt rival Edgio.
CDN firm Edgio filed for Chapter 11 in September. At the time, its network comprised 300 Points of Presence (PoPs) worldwide, more than 7,000 ISP interconnections, and more than 275Tbps of global capacity. The firm previously said it had some 935 customers globally.
Akamai has announced it is the winning bidder to acquire select assets from Edgio, including customer contracts from Edgio’s businesses in security and content delivery, and non-exclusive license rights to Edgio’s entire patent portfolio.
The court hearing to consider approval of the sale transaction is currently set for November 25. If the court approves, the transaction would be expected to close in Q4 2024. Terms of the bid were not shared.
No assets related to the Edgio network will be acquired as part of the bid.
Bankruptcy documents suggest Radware is the backup bidder for Edgio’s Apps and Security Business Assets segment.
Journalist Dan Rayburn noted on LinkedIn that investment firm and Edgio debtor Lynrock won the assets for Uplynk and Interdigital, some of Edgio’s patents.
Edgio was formed in 2022 after Limelight Networks acquired Edgecast from Yahoo and Apollo Global Management, with the combined company rebranding that year.
Limelight was founded in 2001, going public in 2006. The original EdgeCast Networks was founded in 2006, receiving funding from Disney's Steamboat Ventures before being acquired by Verizon in 2013.
Between 2013 and 2016, EdgeCast was a subsidiary of Verizon. Verizon acquired Yahoo! In 2017 and merged it with its Verizon Digital Media Services business (including the CDN service) to form Oath Inc. and later Verizon Media. Funds managed by Apollo Global Management Inc. acquired Verizon Media in early 2021 and brought back the EdgeCast and Yahoo names.
Content delivery networks (CDNs) emerged in the late 1990s, with players like Akamai and Cloudflare speeding up web page performance by caching content close to users. More recently, Edge computing emerged as a way to achieve essentially the same thing, and CDN players have extended their offerings to do more than caching, and handling services closer to users.
Akamai, which has been expanding into data center and Edge computing in recent years, has been hoovering up CDN assets and customers as others exit the business. Lumen and StackPath last year quit the CDN business, selling their enterprise customers to Akamai.
Cloud provider Vultr recently launched a new CDN offering.
Update: The bankruptcy court has approved the bid. Dan Rayburn suggests the bid was for $125 million.
Akamai said it expects Edgio's "several hundred" contracts to add $9-11 million in Q4 2024 and $80-100 million in revenue across 2025.
Akamai agreed to pay certain costs for Edgio to operate its network during the transition and wind-down period until such time as Edgio ceases operation of its content delivery network in mid-January 2025.
