Akamai Technologies signed a definitive agreement on May 14, 2026 to acquire LayerX, a Tel Aviv company that makes browser-based tools to control how employees use AI. Akamai said it would pay about $205 million for all of LayerX's outstanding equity, after expected adjustments to the purchase price. SecurityWeek reported that the deal was all cash.
Akamai expected the deal to close in the third quarter of 2026. It announced on July 2, 2026 that the acquisition had been completed.
LayerX co-founders Or Eshed, the chief executive, and David Vaisbrud, the chief technology officer, joined Akamai's Zero Trust organisation along with other LayerX staff. SecurityWeek reported that Akamai would keep the LayerX brand for a short time before moving it under the Akamai name. Akamai's website now lists the product as Akamai Workforce Protector, formerly LayerX.
What LayerX built
LayerX sells secure enterprise browser technology that works inside the browsers companies already use, rather than asking staff to switch to a separate corporate browser. It also supports newer agentic browsers such as Atlas and Comet.
The software lets security teams see and control what employees do with web content, AI prompts, file uploads and SaaS applications, and it does not require changes to company infrastructure. Its main use case is AI usage control: tracking what staff type into chatbots and large language models and stopping sensitive data from leaving the company.
Akamai said LayerX was expected to have about $10 million in annual recurring revenue at the end of 2026.
Akamai's description of the product stresses that companies can add the protections to the browsers their staff already prefer. That is the main difference from secure enterprise browser vendors that ship their own browser and ask employees to move to it. For a security team, it means LayerX can be deployed without replacing the browser fleet.
“Securing human and agentic AI usage has become one of the defining challenges in enterprise security”
Why Akamai is buying
Akamai plans to add LayerX to its Zero Trust products, which include zero trust network access, runtime protection for AI applications and workload-level segmentation for AI inference. The company said LayerX gives it a control layer that governs AI where employees actually use it.
Mani Sundaram, executive vice president and general manager of Akamai's Security Technology Group, said customers were adopting AI quickly and told Globes that their existing controls could not see how employees were working with AI tools and large language models. Eshed said in the release that securing both human and agentic AI use had become one of the main problems in enterprise security.
Akamai expected the deal to reduce its non-GAAP earnings per share for fiscal 2026 by about $0.12.
The founders and the funding
LayerX raised about $45 million in total, according to Globes and SecurityWeek. Globes reported that this included a $37 million Series A, and that PitchBook data put the company's valuation in that financing at $62 million. Its named investors include Glilot Capital Partners, Dell Technologies Capital and Jump Capital.
At $205 million, the sale price was more than three times the valuation Globes cited from PitchBook. Akamai did not disclose LayerX's headcount.
Globes described Eshed as LayerX's chief executive and Vaisbrud as its chief technology officer. Both moved to Akamai with the rest of the team, and the company's Tel Aviv base became part of Akamai's Zero Trust organisation.
Akamai's fourth Tel Aviv security deal
LayerX is Akamai's fourth acquisition of a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity company in five years. Globes described LayerX as an Israeli browser security company, and the deal keeps its team in Tel Aviv inside Akamai's Zero Trust group.
Law firm WilmerHale published a note on the deal on May 19, 2026. Akamai, which is listed on Nasdaq, did not give a detailed roadmap for the product beyond the rebranding and its place in the Zero Trust portfolio.
