Instart

Market position

Instart operated in the content delivery network and web performance/security market against Akamai, Cloudflare and Fastly. Gartner placed it in the visionary category of its Web Application Firewall Magic Quadrant in September 2017, and Business Insider ranked it first among 17 best startups to work for in America. Contemporary industry commentary described it as a mid-tier CDN that had lost technological ground before its 2020 asset sale.

Technology

Instart's platform combined a content delivery network with client-side technology, including a component called Nanovisor, to accelerate web and mobile application delivery. Capabilities spanned image optimization, tag analytics and control, advertising acceleration and viewability optimization, a web application firewall, DDoS protection and bot management. Its intellectual property was described by the acquirer as relevant to page integrity, a client-side web security area.

Go-to-market

The company sold directly to large enterprise accounts and competed aggressively for incumbent CDN customers, including a publicized program to buy out Akamai contracts and heavy advertising placed near Akamai's annual conference venue.

Enterprise publishers, media companies, retailers and travel and telecom operators running high-traffic websites and applications. Named clients included Cafe Media, Edmunds, Bonnier, Ziff Davis, CBS, Tronc, TUI Group, Telstra, Kate Spade and The Washington Post.

Geography

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in New York, London, Bangalore and Sydney.

History

Founded in 2010 as Instart Logic, the company raised six rounds of venture funding between 2012 and 2017 totalling $140 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Tenaya Capital, Four Rivers Group, Hermes Growth Partners, Geodesic Capital, Telstra Ventures, the Stanford-StartX Fund, Harris Barton Asset Management and ST Telemedia. In the fall of 2014 it launched a $100 million contract buyout program aimed at Akamai customers, and in February 2016 it acquired mobile app accelerator Kwicr. The name was shortened from Instart Logic to Instart in June 2018, a contraction of "Instant Start." By early 2020 the company's site stated it was transitioning its technology and customers to another platform; on February 27, 2020 Akamai announced it had closed an asset purchase of Instart's customer contracts and select intellectual property, and Instart was dissolved in 2020.

Risks & controversies

Instart's platform was decommissioned following the asset sale, requiring customers to migrate and leaving smaller accounts uncertain; the transaction excluded most employees, who were reported to have been laid off. Industry commentary attributed the outcome to a technology stack that fell behind competitors and to misjudging the direction of the CDN and edge computing market, and noted that the company's earlier tactics targeting Akamai customers were viewed as aggressive and questionable. The company's Wikipedia entry has also been flagged for close-connection editing and promotional content.