Fastly, a US-based content delivery software developer backed by corporates Deutsche Telekom, Swisscom and O’Reilly Media, has hired Bank of America as lead underwriter for its initial public offering, Reuters reported yesterday.
The company is targeting a valuation of more than $1bn, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that the offering is expected to take place later this year.
Founded in 2011, Fastly operates a cloud edge platform that caches data in infrastructure as close as possible to the end user in order to speed up the loading time of websites and mobile apps, facilitate video streaming services and optimise images.
The proudct includes security tools and reduces a company’s exposure to distributed denial of service attacks, which are used by malicious actors to force websites and applications offline by overloading a server with data requests.
Fastly has raised $220m in equity financing to date, most recently securing $40m in a July 2018 round led by Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners (DTCP), the corporate venturing arm of telecommunications firm Deutsche Telekom.
Swisscom Ventures, the corporate venturing subsidiary of telecoms firm Swisscom, also took part in the round, as did venture capital fund Sozo Ventures and undisclosed existing backers.
O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), the corporate VC subsidiary of media group O’Reilly Media, contributed to a $40m series C round for the company in 2014 alongside Amplify Partners, August Capital, Battery Ventures and IDG Ventures.
OATV and all the other series C investors returned to back Fastly’s $75m series D round the following year alongside Iconiq Capital. Fastly’s shareholders also include growth equity firm Sorenson Capital and Sapphire Ventures, the VC firm spun out of software developer SAP.
Fastly competes with another corporate-backed company, Cloudflare, which most recently closed a $150m series F round earlier this month, and which had been rumoured to be seeking an initial public offering at a $3.5bn valuation in the first half of this year.
