Vendor lineage
Radware - the Zisapel lineage
Born of Israel's RAD Group in 1997; the ADC and DDoS specialist that rescued Alteon from Nortel's wreckage for ~$18M.
A father-and-son founding inside Israel's most storied networking family: RAD Group patriarch Yehuda Zisapel and his son Roy, CEO since inception. Radware IPO'd on NASDAQ in 1999, built the DefensePro DDoS line, and in April 2009 bought Nortel's legendary Alteon application-switching assets out of bankruptcy for about $18 million - instantly a top-three ADC vendor. Still independent, still founder-led.
Founding stories
Radware
A father-and-son founding inside Israel's most storied networking family: Yehuda Zisapel, co-founder of RAD Data Communications and the BYNET distribution house at the heart of the RAD Group, seeded the company under the group's incubator model; his son Roy - a Tel Aviv University mathematics and computer science graduate then in his mid-twenties - has been president and CEO since inception. The first product, Web Server Director, distributed HTTP traffic across server farms as web workloads moved online.
The timeline
- ShieldSquare
January 2019: bot management arrives - Radware Bot Manager - as automated traffic becomes the defining application threat.
- Seculert
January 2017: cloud-based breach and data-exfiltration protection is added to the security side.
- Strangeloop
Web performance optimization joins the delivery portfolio.
- Alteon rescued from Nortel
In April 2009 Radware pays about $18 million ($17.65M) for Nortel's Alteon application-switching assets as Nortel is dismantled in bankruptcy. Nortel had paid an estimated $7.8 billion in stock for Alteon WebSystems in 2000 (closed October 2000) - a 99.8 percent markdown in nine years, instantly making Radware a top-three ADC vendor.
Nortel price per Alteon SEC Form 425 filings, Jul 2000; see the Nortel & Bay Networks lineage page.
- Covelight
A $16 million acquisition brings web application auditing and monitoring into the portfolio, feeding what becomes the AppWall web application firewall.
- NASDAQ IPO
Radware lists on NASDAQ in September 1999, raising roughly $60 million in the dot-com window - the RAD Group model produces another public company.
- Founded inside the RAD Group
Roy and Yehuda Zisapel start Radware in Tel Aviv around application-aware traffic management; Web Server Director is the first product.
Radware's own SEC filings date inception to May 1996; company histories commonly cite April-May 1997.
Flagship products and solutions
- Alteon ADCThe application delivery controller line carrying the Alteon name from the dot-com era into the present - load balancing, SSL offload, and application acceleration.
- DefenseProRadware's DDoS mitigation appliances - behavioral, real-time attack detection for networks and data centers, complemented by cloud DDoS scrubbing services.
- AppWall and Cloud WAFWeb application firewalling on-premises and as a service, descended in part from the Covelight technology.
- Bot ManagerThe ShieldSquare lineage: distinguishing human, good-bot, and hostile automated traffic at application scale.
Key innovations
- The RAD Group incubator modelRadware is a flagship of a uniquely Israeli institution: the Zisapel family's RAD Group seeded dozens of networking companies, funding them from group resources rather than venture rounds.
- Behavioral DDoS mitigationDefensePro built its reputation on real-time behavioral analysis rather than static signatures - protecting carriers and banks under active attack.
- The Alteon coupBuying a marquee product line out of a bankruptcy for ~$18 million and running it for decades is one of the industry's great value acquisitions.
Main markets
Radware competes in application delivery and application security - the ADC market where F5 is the reference vendor, and the DDoS and WAF markets alongside the cloud scrubbing providers. It remains independent and NASDAQ-listed (RDWR), still led by its founding CEO.
Ownership stayed close to home: Yehuda Zisapel remained the largest shareholder at roughly 15 percent, with Roy holding about 3.4 percent - a founder-controlled structure rare among public security vendors.
Analyst standing
- The 2009 Alteon purchase was widely credited with vaulting Radware into the top tier of application delivery vendors, bringing thousands of enterprise customers overnight.