Ankeena Networks

About Ankeena Networks

Ankeena Networks, founded in 2008 as Nokeena Networks, was a media infrastructure solutions provider based in Santa Clara, California. The founders included Rajan Raghavan, Prabakar Sundarrajan, Jaspal Kohli, and Kumar Narayanan. The company specialized in technology to deliver online media content at a massive scale, aiming to provide a television-like viewing experience while reducing delivery costs for service providers.

The company's core product was the Media Flow Director, a software appliance designed for a "three-screen content delivery platform" encompassing PCs, TVs, and mobile devices. This technology utilized multi-tier caching and adaptive streaming to ensure a smooth viewing experience without buffering by dynamically adjusting the delivery bit-rate based on network conditions. A key benefit was its ability to reduce the number of servers required for media delivery by a factor of up to ten, significantly lowering transit network and media delivery costs. Ankeena's solutions catered to service providers, including mobile operators, helping them manage the increasing demand for IP video and rich media.

After raising a total of $31.8 million in funding from investors such as Trinity Ventures, Clearstone Venture Partners, and Mayfield, the company was acquired by Juniper Networks in April 2010 for under $100 million. Following the acquisition, Ankeena's team and technology were integrated into Juniper's Junos Ready Software business group to bolster Juniper's content delivery networking and media delivery solutions. The entire senior management team, including the four founders, joined Juniper in various management roles.