Video Specialists Octoshape acquired by Akami

    Earlier this month it was announced that Octoshape will be acquired by Akamai. Octoshape, which works with streaming media and Over-The-Top (OTT) broadband content, did already last year report a doubling of the numbers of users, to over 100 million. The startups, established already in 2003, has over the years grown to 40 employees.

    “By joining forces with Akamai, we believe our joint customers will benefit from unsurpassed quality and reach,” said Michael Koehn, CEO of Octoshape.

    “The Octoshape team is proud of the technology it has built over the years, and looks forward to evolving that technology to the next level with Akamai.”

    Akamai Technologies, Inc. is an american cloud services provider headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Akamai’s content delivery network is one of the world’s largest distributed computing platforms. The company is listed at Nasdaq, and specialises in web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions. It is sees in Octoshape an advanced service that can take the move to high definition content such as broadband TV into the future.

    “We are working to continue to extend our platform to accommodate video throughput increases that come from the adoption of 4K, and to support a potential 100-1000X increase in network traffic in the future.” says Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai.

    “As more video gets consumed over the Internet, and on devices that can display higher-quality resolution, it is important for us to develop new ways to acquire, transform and distribute the highest-quality media for broadcast-size audiences.”

    Northcap has been the initial investor in Octoshape. Thomas Weilby Knudsen, General Partner at Northcap, commented the deal:

    ”It is a great pleasure to see a small Nordic technology innovator enable new consumer behavior and become a global player in the rapidly growing over-the-top video streaming market. We at Northcap are very happy that Octoshapes team and technology has found its natural place to develop to the next stage.”

    The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it is an all-cash deal.