Inktomi was founded in September 1996 by UC Berkeley professor Eric Brewer with Harvard Business School classmate Paul Gauthier and graduate student Michael Aagaard. It was funded by Doug Carlston and Broderbund founder and venture capitalists. In December 1998 the company went public, and in July 1999 Yahoo acquired a 10b% interest. In March 2001 Yahoo acquired the remaining publicly traded shares of Inktomi.
