Akamai acquires Limelight Networks

Categories

“Akamai acquires Limelight Networks” should be tomorrows headline. LLNW is very affordable, being that Akamai has a near $10B valuation, and $1B of cash in the bank. There are many good reasons to do it, and very few not to do it. Akamai paid almost $300M for Cotendo, and we know that LLNW is more valuable than Cotendo. Even if Akamai pays $350M for LLNW, it will only cost them $250M, due to fact that LLNW has $100M of cash in the bank. In addition, Akamai buys an excellent CDN customer base that generates $150M+ of annual revenue. Nowadays, CDN revenue is hard to come by.

Yes, there is plenty of overlap in the product line, but there’s also plenty of valuable assets. LLNW has a highly skilled workforce that understands the CDN business inside out. That skill set is extremely valuable, and in short supply. Akamai will need every single one to make Akamai’s dream come true, so that it can reach the $5B annual revenue milestone by 2020. Akamai does need to make some bold moves to reach that $5B, but buying LLNW is not one of them, buying LLNW is a no brainer.

Scroll to Top