The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the backbone of the Internet. Much like the post office processing mail, BGP picks the most efficient routes for delivering Internet traffic from network to network. Between Internet Service Providers and large organizations around the world that operate their own networks, the number of autonomous systems that comprise the Internet surpassed 75k. These networks broadcast IP addresses to each other via BGP to enable traffic exchange across the Internet.

Administrators in each network configure multiple BGP attributes every day to help navigate Internet traffic more efficiently in terms of speed and cost. Still, even today, the majority of such configurations take place manually or via custom scripts, in a jungle of network devices and setups. The underlying complexity of the task makes it prone to errors and bad actors ("BGP hijacking"). Such misconfigurations often result in significant costs, or even propagate to take down parts of the network. Indicatively, Cisco reports almost two thousand incidents in Q1 2021 alone.

Xenofontas Dimitropoulos, Vasileios Kotronis and Lefteris Manassakis have been renowned researchers, open-source contributors and experienced practitioners on the topic. They are among the creators of Artemis, an open-source software that tracks BGP configurations and provides instant alerts for errors and hijacks, with zero false positives for the first time in the industry. It is currently being used by some of the largest network operators in the world, including CenturyLink, Verizon, Time Warner and Telia.

Leveraging Artemis and their research at FORTH, the three recently founded Code BGP to take their efforts to the next level and build the modern stack for BGP operations. Code BGP’s offering extends from enabling BGP data access and configurations via flexible APIs, to mitigating hijacks and route leaks on the spot, to providing real-time monitoring to your network's announcements. The team is on a mission to make network operators successful, enabling them to perform highly-critical, value-adding tasks, while taking good care of their network.

Today, we are excited to announce Marathon’s $1.5 million seed investment in the company. We believe that facilitating visibility, security and automation at the BGP level is a foundational innovation with an impact that transcends beyond the network itself. At the same time, we have been inspired by the deep expertise and the level of ambition of the team, and we look forward to working with Fontas, Vassilis, Lefteris and everyone at Code BGP to help build a better Internet.

Code BGP is a company that modernizes operations for Internet network operators by facilitating visibility, security and automation

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Marathon Venture Capital is supported by InnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing.

In addition, Marathon Venture Capital is supported by, and in part financed by, the Hellenic Ministry of Economy and Development (“MNEC”) and the Hellenic Development Bank of Investments (“HDBI”).