Private company

Blue Coat Systems

Blue Coat Systems, Inc., was a company that provided hardware, software, and services designed for cybersecurity and network management.1

Last updated Oct 18, 2026.

Overview

1996Founded1

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Blue Coat Systems, Inc., was a company that provided hardware, software, and services designed for cybersecurity and network management. In 2016 it was acquired by and folded into Symantec and in 2019 as part of Symantec’s Enterprise Security business it was sold to Broadcom.2

How it started

History

In March 1996, the company was founded as CacheFlow, Inc. in Redmond, Washington by Michael Malcolm, a computer scientist and professor at the University of Waterloo, Joe Pruskowski, and Doug Crow. The company initially raised $1 million in seed money from a dozen angel investors.

The company's goal was to develop appliances that would increase website speed by storing frequently accessed web data in the cache.

In October 1996, Benchmark Capital purchased 25% of the company for $2.8 million, equivalent to a price of 87.5 cents per share. By February 1997, the company had raised $5.1 million. In December 1997, U.S. Venture Partners acquired 17% of the company for $6 million.

In 1997, the company moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley.

In January 1998, the company released its first product, the CacheFlow 1000. It cached website objects that users were likely to use repeatedly, to increase load speed. In October 1999, the CacheOS operating system was released.

From Wikipedia’s article on Blue Coat Systems, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Timeline

  1. 2016Acquired Acquired by Gen Digital1
  2. 2015Acquired Acquired by Bain Capital1
  3. 2011Acquired Acquired by Thoma Bravo1
  4. 1996Founded Founded1

Sources

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