Cato Networks, provider a single-vendor SASE platform, announced its annual recurring revenue (ARR) grew from $1 million to $100 million in five years. This performance for enterprise network security compares with LinkedIn and faster than consumer-oriented brands, such as Twilio, Wix, Zapier, Canva, and Shopify.
Like these companies, Cato claims it was “the first to bring a born-for-the-cloud architecture” to disrupt its category. Since its founding in 2015, Cato’s vision has been of a single, global platform to converge enterprise networking and networking security in the cloud, a vision that was adopted in 2019 by Gartner in the SASE framework and more recently the market guide for Single-Vendor SASE.
To date, Cato SASE Cloud has been adopted by more than 1,500 enterprise customers spanning more than 23,000 branch locations and cloud instances and 450,000-plus remote users across 150-plus countries.
“Cato is leading the biggest disruption of the networking and network security markets since the introduction of the next-generation firewall 17 years ago,” said Alon Alter, chief revenue officer at Cato Networks. “The simplicity, agility, visibility, and control of the Cato SASE Cloud brings world-class security protection and optimal network performance to businesses of all sizes. Driven by security and networking experts, Cato has the right service DNA and technology to become the mission-critical platform for the digital enterprise.”
Achieving $100 million in ARR, the so-called “Centaur” status, is seen as better predictor of business success than becoming a Unicorn, which Cato achieved in 2020.
Like other Centaurs, Cato’s growth was propelled by revolutionizing its industry, introducing a single-vendor SASE solution. Until Cato, enterprise IT teams suffered the costs, complexity, and risks of networks built from discrete, specialized security and networking appliances. With the Cato Single Pass Cloud Engine (SPACE) architecture, Cato showed how replacing appliances with a single-vendor SASE platform could transform enterprise IT infrastructure.
Cato’s transformation of networking and security into a converged cloud architecture led to the industry realignment of SASE.
The percentage of new single-vendor SASE deployments is expected to more than triple in the next three years. According to Gartner, “By 2025, one-third of new SASE deployments will be based on a single-vendor SASE offering, up from 10 percent in 2022.” At the same time, Gartner expects that the SASE market will grow at a CAGR of 35.8 percent, reaching almost $21 billion by 2026.
This architectural shift is the unsung story of SASE. The cloudification and convergence of networking and security brought cloud agility and economics to bear on IT infrastructure. It is this architectural change that allows massive operational IT improvements and efficiencies and leads, as Gartner noted, to improved security posture, network and staff security efficacy, and user and administrator experience.
Integrating appliances together may share similar features as a single-vendor SASE solution but will lack the cloud’s benefits.
For more information about Cato and Cato SASE Cloud, visit us at www.catonetworks.com
