Prolexic Technologies
| Company type | Private (before acquisition) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Cybersecurity |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Founder | Barrett Lyon |
| Fate | Acquired by Akamai Technologies |
| Successor | Akamai Technologies |
| Headquarters | Hollywood, Florida , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | DDoS mitigation services and platform |
| Parent | Akamai Technologies (from 2014) |
Prolexic Technologies was an American firm specializing in security solutions designed to safeguard websites, data centers, and enterprise IP applications from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting the network, transport, and application layers. The company operated a DDoS defense platform backed by a worldwide network of traffic scrubbing facilities and maintained a 24/7 security operations control center (SOCC). Prolexic’s offerings focused on enhancing protection and resilience against DDoS threats.
In February 2014, the cybersecurity and cloud services provider Akamai Technologies acquired Prolexic for $370 million.
History
Established in 2003 by Barrett Lyon, Prolexic catered to sectors such as airlines and hospitality, e-commerce, energy, financial services, gambling, gaming, government agencies, and SaaS providers. Its client roster included prominent names like Sony and several leading banking institutions.
In 2005, Red Herring named Prolexic among North America’s 100 Hottest Private Companies.
After being acquired by Akamai in 2014, the Prolexic platform was incorporated into Akamai’s suite of security products. In 2023, Akamai introduced the sixth-generation Prolexic DDoS platform—a fully software-defined and scalable system that doubled mitigation capacity to 20 Tbps.
Financial history
Prolexic completed two funding rounds led by Kennet Partners in 2011, raising a total of $15.9 million.
In 2012, Baltimore-based private equity firm Camden Partners invested $6 million, while American Trading and Production Corp contributed $2 million during an $8 million Series B financing. As part of this agreement, Jason Tagler from Camden Partners joined Prolexic’s board. The funds were allocated toward workforce growth and network expansion.
In 2013, the company secured a $30 million Series C investment led by new backers Trident Capital and Intel Capital, with continued participation from Kennet Partners, Camden Partners, and Medina Capital.
DDoS mitigation
By 2012, motivations behind DDoS attacks had shifted toward hacktivism and vandalism, increasing exposure beyond high-profile organizations to businesses of all sizes. Emerging application-layer attacks became more precise and less resource-intensive compared to traditional botnet-based methods. Prolexic’s cloud-based DDoS mitigation service reroutes traffic through its infrastructure to eliminate malicious data streams, ensuring only legitimate traffic reaches clients. This model provides an economical alternative to maintaining internal network firewall systems, making DDoS defense feasible for most online enterprises.
See also
External links
- Security companies of the United States
- Computer security companies
- Software companies based in Florida
- Companies based in Broward County, Florida
- Hollywood, Florida
- Computer companies established in 2003
- 2003 establishments in Florida
- DDoS mitigation companies
- 2014 mergers and acquisitions
- Defunct software companies of the United States