Partner-Fueled Cato Networks Lands $55 Million In Funding

SD-WAN specialist Cato Networks is following up a successful 2018 with $55 million in new funding.

Cato Networks saw it bookings increase by 352 percent year-over-year in 2018, with its channel business increasing five-fold, Shlomo Kramer, co-founder and CEO of Cato Networks, told CRN.

The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company's latest round of funding, which was led by LightSpeed Ventures, brings Cato Networks's total funding to $125 million since it was founded in 2015.

[Related: CRN: 2018 Emerging Vendors]

Cato Networks, which does 100 percent of its business through the channel, offers a cloud-native enterprise network with built-in security, wide area networking (WAN) optimization, and SD-WAN.

Kramer said that in addition to being affordable, Cato Networks differentiates itself in the competition in the crowded networking space with its complete WAN solution that can address global connectivity, security issues, data center access, and mobile access optimization.

The new round of investment will be put to good use to continue to build out the company's global backbone, Kramer said.

"We will now have more resources to grow and deliver a wider and better network, alongside a stronger and more comprehensive security suite."

Cato Networks said that it has more than 300 business customers around the world today relying on its WAN optimization and SD-WAN solutions. The company's channel Partners, Kramer said, have been "extremely instrumental" in Cato's recent growth in the midmarket.

Cato plans to harness the power of its partners to help it go after larger enterprise customers, he added.

"In 2019, Cato is accelerating its march upmarket to go after large enterprise customers, as we have achieved the scale, capabilities, and the depth of resources needed to support them," he said.