Panther Express
Panther Express was a New York-based content delivery network founded in 2005 and merged with CDNetworks in 2009.
Last updated August 26, 2026
AI crawler reads
No AI crawler has read this profile since Oct 28, 2026.
Overview
Panther Express was a content delivery network (CDN) company headquartered in New York City. It was established in August 2005 by Dwight Merriman, Kevin P. Ryan, Ryan Nitz, and Pablo Mayrgundter, who had professional connections to DoubleClick. Merriman had co-founded DoubleClick, while Ryan had led the company, giving Panther Express an experienced founding group with backgrounds in online advertising, internet infrastructure, and large-scale digital services. The company’s business centered on CDN services: distributing web content through geographically dispersed infrastructure so that websites and online applications could deliver files and other digital assets more efficiently to users. Panther Express was positioned as an infrastructure provider serving organizations that needed content delivery capabilities without necessarily building their own global delivery network. Contemporary descriptions and archived company material characterized the business as offering CDN services to smaller or less dominant customers, although the available reference material does not provide a full product catalogue, customer list, geographic network description, or detailed financial performance. Panther Express was initially funded by its founders, with Dwight Merriman and Kevin P. Ryan providing undisclosed seed capital in 2005. Greylock Partners supplied $6 million in a Series A financing round in 2006. In 2008, Index Ventures, Gold Hill Capital, and Greylock Partners participated in a Series B round reported at $15.75 million. These investments supported the company during a period when CDN providers competed on network reach, performance, reliability, and pricing. The available sources do not specify Panther Express’s revenue, valuation, employee count, or customer numbers. On February 25, 2009, Panther Express merged with CDNetworks. The transaction ended Panther Express as an independent company and brought its business into the CDNetworks organization. Because the company’s principal corporate outcome was this merger, Panther Express is best treated as a historical or defunct corporate brand rather than an active standalone service. Publicly available reference material is limited and does not establish a later independent operating history, a successor brand architecture, or whether every Panther Express product continued under the CDNetworks name.
History
Panther Express was founded in August 2005 in New York City by Dwight Merriman, Kevin P. Ryan, Ryan Nitz, and Pablo Mayrgundter. The founding team had ties to DoubleClick: Merriman was a co-founder of that company and Ryan had headed it. Their experience placed Panther Express within the generation of internet infrastructure companies that developed alongside the rapid growth of online publishing, digital advertising, and bandwidth-intensive web services. The company operated as a content delivery network provider. A CDN improves the delivery of online content by distributing digital assets through network infrastructure positioned closer to end users than a single origin server. In practical terms, such services can help websites and applications deliver pages, files, media, and other content with improved responsiveness and resilience. The available historical material does not provide enough detail to reconstruct Panther Express’s precise network architecture, service-level commitments, customer portfolio, or technical product names. It does, however, identify the company as a CDN and contemporary archived descriptions presented it as a provider serving smaller customers in a market that included much larger infrastructure companies. Panther Express received undisclosed founder-provided seed capital from Dwight Merriman and Kevin P. Ryan in 2005. Greylock Partners invested $6 million in a Series A round in 2006. The company later raised a reported $15.75 million Series B round in 2008 from Index Ventures, Gold Hill Capital, and Greylock Partners. These rounds indicate that Panther Express pursued venture-backed expansion during an increasingly competitive phase of the CDN industry. The available sources do not state how the funds were allocated or provide independently documented revenue, valuation, profitability, staffing, or customer metrics. The company’s independent history concluded on February 25, 2009, when Panther Express merged with CDNetworks. The merger was the central corporate transition in the brand’s documented history. After that event, Panther Express should not be represented as an active standalone CDN company unless later evidence demonstrates that the name continued independently. The supplied reference material does not identify a separate Panther Express operating entity after the merger, nor does it specify the detailed legal or product arrangements under which CDNetworks absorbed or continued its activities.
- 2009
Merger with CDNetworks
[1]Panther Express merged with CDNetworks on February 25, 2009.
- 2008
Series B financing
[1]Index Ventures, Gold Hill Capital, and Greylock Partners invested a reported $15.75 million in the company’s Series B round.
- 2006
Series A financing
[1]Greylock Partners invested $6 million in Panther Express’s Series A round.
- 2005
Company founded
[1]Panther Express was founded in August 2005 in New York City by Dwight Merriman, Kevin P. Ryan, Ryan Nitz, and Pablo Mayrgundter.
- 2005
Founder-funded seed capital
[1]Dwight Merriman and Kevin P. Ryan provided undisclosed seed capital to the new company.
Products and positioning
A specialist content delivery network provider focused on helping organizations distribute web content through managed internet infrastructure, including customers described in contemporary material as smaller or less dominant players in the CDN market.
Content delivery network · 2005
Panther Express CDN
Panther Express’s documented core offering was content delivery network infrastructure. The service was intended to distribute web content through managed network infrastructure, helping websites and online services deliver digital assets to users more efficiently. Available sources do not identify separate product tiers, technical specifications, service-level guarantees, or a complete list of supported content types.
Brand decisions
2009
Merger with CDNetworksM&ABackground
Panther Express operated in the competitive content delivery network market and had completed venture financing before combining with CDNetworks.
Action taken
Panther Express and CDNetworks merged on February 25, 2009.
Aftermath
The transaction ended Panther Express’s documented existence as an independent company. The available source does not specify the post-merger product, brand, or organizational structure.
Recent events
- 2009
Panther Express merges with CDNetworks[1]
M&A
On February 25, Panther Express and CDNetworks merged, ending Panther Express’s independent corporate existence.
- 2008
Panther Express completes Series B financing[1]
Other
Index Ventures, Gold Hill Capital, and Greylock Partners invested a reported $15.75 million in Panther Express’s Series B round.
- 2006
Panther Express raises Series A financing[1]
Other
Greylock Partners invested $6 million in Panther Express’s Series A financing round.
- 2005
Panther Express founded as a content delivery network company[1]
Other
Panther Express was established in August 2005 in New York City by Dwight Merriman, Kevin P. Ryan, Ryan Nitz, and Pablo Mayrgundter.
Sources3 sources
Cite this profile: Cite the canonical profile. /brand-wiki/panther-express · Editorial policy · How profiles are compiled