Itiva Nets $7M

Content delivery startup claims its technology tops Akamai and Limelight. - May 2, 2007
By Adena DeMonte

The rapid growth of video downloading and content sharing has increased the demands on servers and networks. Market leaders Akamai and Limelight say they have the problems under control, but Itiva Networks claims to have a better answer.

Palo Alto, California-based Itiva snagged $7M in funding Wednesday, pumping the video content delivery network company with the money needed to market its technology.

“The main challenge will be to deal with the demand we have,” said company Michel Billard, CEO of Itiva.

Akamai and Limelight have established themselves as market leaders by deploying multiple servers throughout the world to efficiently route data traffic across the Internet. Itiva claims it has developed a more robust delivery system by deploying proxy servers that can detect and store popular content. These proxies can then quickly deliver that content, making them in effect additional network hubs.

Itiva also taps into peer-to-peer technology, so that every computer receiving content through the network ends up contributing bandwidth that makes the system run more smoothly.

Akamai also in April acquired Santa Monica, California-based RedSwoosh, a P2P startup that competes against Itiva’s technology.

“Our stuff is much better. RedSwoosh is an R & D company. Akamai acquired them to acquire the talents. But it shows this is an industry trend, it’s not just us,” said Mr. Billard.

Itiva declined to name the investors who participated in the round, but the company announced that Jerry Pierce, former senior vice president of technology for Universal Pictures, and Max Paley, vice president of Multimedia for Apple, had joined its board. Nicholas R. Miller, a highly seasoned entrepreneur with more than 25 years of leadership starting and managing private and public firms, and Richard Archuleta, a successful technology business leader with 26 years experience, including serving as a former senior vice president and general manager at Hewlett Packard, also joined as board directors.

Competitor Limelight filed for a $201 million IPO in March (see Limelight Files for IPO).

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PR Contact for Itiva Networks
Jay Mejia
Itiva Networks
Tel: 650-330-1300 ext 202
jaymejia@itiva.com