Who would Acquire Aryaka Networks

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Aryaka Networks, the first and only WAN Optimization as-a-Service company, is shredding the competition. It has received $54M in funding, and is backed by the top VCs. The question arises, who is going to acquire Aryaka?

Aryaka is not a typical cloud service provider. They are a hybrid of many different companies. As such, interested buyers might find it challenging integrating such an innovative company into its pre-existing operations.

Akamai could easily snap up Aryaka, just like it did to Speedera Networks, which was started by the founders of Aryaka many years ago. However, Aryaka is not a really a competitor threatening Akamai’s core CDN business. Akamai could buy it, and let it run as a separate unit, or integrate its technology and customers into the Akamai platform. But at a valuation of a few hundred million, I don’t see it happening.

AT&T, Verizon, or CenturyLink could buy them, but most likely will not. The same goes for Level 3. That leaves us with three remaining options—Internap, XO, and Riverbed. Internap can’t really afford it, while XO probably can. Aryaka would be the perfect fit for XO. XO has a large number of big enterprise clients, including the Fortune 500. It could use the Aryaka offering to up-sell them. However, this is a long shot. Telco’s are not known for spending outrageous amounts for startups.

Riverbed could acquire Aryaka, but Riverbed is into tangible products like hardware and software. Aryaka is all service, so it’s too risky for Riverbed. My prediction is Aryaka Networks goes public in 3 years. That’s the price for being ahead of its time.

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