Secret Startup You've Never Heard Of Quietly Runs The Internet, And Got $150 Million In Funding

CloudFlare is a startup that quietly bolsters most of the Internet.

Founded in 2009, it's responsible for reducing latencies for a number of major web services, by offering their server networks. And they just raised $150 million in a newly concluded funding round.

CloudFlare is a content delivery network (CDN), which means it delivers web content to a user in a certain geographic location, in order to speed load times. SOme of its biggest customers include Discord, OKCupid, and more. More recently, they'd also been expanding into privacy services and cybersecurity offerings.

The funding round it just concluded saw them raise $150 million, led led by investment firm Franklin Templeton. Prior to this however, rumours were afloat that the company was looking to at long last release an IPO, which could have put the startup's value at more than $3.5 billion. The funding round means they're not there yet, indicating the IPO is cancelled or at least postponed.

CloudFlare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince - Reuters

CloudFlare says the money will fund international growth, new hires, and developing new products.