Pando Networks

Pando Networks was a managed peer-to-peer (P2P) media distribution company established in 2004 in New York City. The company was co-founded by Robert Levitan, who served as CEO, Laird Popkin, the CTO, Yaron Samid as CMO, and Avi Cohen as COO. Levitan was a serial entrepreneur, having previously co-founded iVillage, a prominent early web community for women. Popkin brought deep technical expertise, with a background as the director of digital technology for Warner Music Group. The founding team aimed to create a new internet infrastructure standard for efficient and commercially viable delivery of rich media.

The company's core business focused on providing cloud distribution services for large digital files, primarily catering to the video game, software, and video publishing industries. Its technology was a hybrid system based on a modified version of BitTorrent, combining a peer-to-peer network with centralized server control. This model allowed for intelligent throttling, detailed analytics, and security, while significantly reducing bandwidth costs for its clients by offloading delivery from traditional Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to the P2P network. Major clients included prominent game publishers like Riot Games, Nexon, and Turbine, as well as media companies like NBC Universal, which used the technology to deliver high-definition TV shows.

In addition to its enterprise services, Pando Networks operated a freemium consumer application launched in 2006. This application allowed individuals to send large files up to 1GB, bypassing the attachment size limits of email providers. The consumer tool proved highly popular, reaching over 30 million installations by May 2009. A significant milestone for the company was co-founding the P4P (Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P) Working Group in 2007 with Verizon. This initiative, which grew to include over 50 ISPs and P2P companies, aimed to develop protocols that would speed up P2P content delivery while lowering network utilization for Internet Service Providers. After raising a total of $11M in funding from investors including Intel Capital, BRM Capital, and Wheatley Partners, Pando Networks was acquired by Microsoft in March 2013.

Keywords: P2P media distribution, content delivery network, file sharing, video game distribution, large file transfer, peer-to-peer technology, Robert Levitan, Laird Popkin, digital media delivery, software distribution, CDN peering, P4P Working Group, cloud distribution, video streaming, managed P2P, Microsoft acquisition, online game delivery, digital asset delivery, bandwidth cost reduction, hybrid P2P