Limelight Networks buys OVP Delve Networks

CDN Limelight Networks has acquired online video platform and analytics firm Delve Networks, giving Limelight an additional service to offer customers in a market that has become increasingly competitive and price sensitive. The deal, a mixture of stock and cash, is estimated to be worth about $10 million.

Delve, which has more than 120 customers including Cleveland Clinic, American Hospital Association, ESPN, CDW, Standard & Poor's, Hallmark, Lego, World Vision, and several professional sports organizations, gives Limelight the ability to offer customers content management, analytics, monetization, player customization, and rich APIs.

All of Delve's employees are expected to remain with the company and Delve CEO and co-founder Alex Castro will become Limelight's VP and GM of video platform solutions.

The combination of Limelight’s distributed computing platform with Delve’s cloud-based video platform gives the CDN's customers a more streamlined workflow. In addition, Delve has patent-pending key technology that can capture rich information about content that, when combined with Limelight’s ad targeting and delivery assets, can offer more relevant and higher CPM rich media advertising.

Limelight's acquisition of Delve gives it what could be critical differentiation in the CDN market where prices dropped 40-45 percent in 2009 and are forecast to drop an additional 25 percent this year.

For the OVP market, where there currently are some five dozen companies operating in the space, Delve's purchase could be the start of what some in the OVP industry expect to be a period of consolidation.

For more:
- see this release
- see this article

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