Cato Networks

Cato Networks was founded in Tel Aviv in 2015 by Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz. Kramer is one of Israeli cybersecurity's most prominent serial entrepreneurs, having co-founded Check Point Software Technologies in 1993 (credited with commercializing the firewall) and Imperva in 2002 (IPO 2011); Shatz previously co-founded Incapsula, a cloud web-security company later acquired by Imperva, where the two first worked together. Cato launched its platform in February 2016, betting that enterprise networking and security -- historically built from disjointed on-premises appliances (firewalls, VPN concentrators, WAN routers, secure web gateways) -- could instead be delivered as a single converged, cloud-native service. This thesis anticipated what Gartner would later formalize as the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, and Cato has marketed itself since as the originator of SASE ("WE ARE SASE").

Product evolution followed a steady "layer-on" pattern: core SD-WAN and firewall-as-a-service at launch, threat hunting added in 2018, managed detection and response (MDR) in mid-2021, CASB/data-protection capabilities in early 2022, a SASE-native XDR in January 2024, Digital Experience Monitoring in late 2024, and a wave of AI-focused capabilities beginning in 2025-2026 (AI security posture management via the Aim Security acquisition, a GPU-powered SASE platform, and "Agentic Threat Prevention" to counter AI-assisted attacks). The company has consistently pitched itself against both legacy network vendors (Cisco, Palo Alto Networks' hardware-based approach) and single-purpose cloud security vendors (Zscaler, Netskope) by arguing that a fully converged single-vendor platform reduces complexity and total cost of ownership versus stitching together point products.

Financially, Cato raised early institutional capital from U.S. Venture Partners and Aspect Ventures (Series A/B, 2015), then scaled through a well-documented sequence of growth rounds: $55M Series C (Jan 2019), $77M Series D (April 2020, coinciding with pandemic-driven remote-work demand for its platform), $130M Series E (Nov 2020) that pushed its valuation past $1 billion (unicorn status), and a $200M Series F (Oct 2021) led by Lightspeed Venture Partners at a $2.5 billion valuation, with Greylock, Acrew Capital (formerly Aspect Ventures), Coatue, and Singtel Innov8 participating. A further $238M growth round closed in September 2023 at a $3 billion+ valuation as the company signaled intent to pursue an eventual IPO. Cato's largest round to date was a $359M Series G in June 2025 at a valuation of more than $4.8 billion, led by Vitruvian Partners and ION Crossover Partners; the round was extended by an additional $50M from existing investor Acrew Capital in September 2025 (bringing total Series G proceeds to $409M) alongside Cato's first acquisition -- AI-security startup Aim Security -- and an announcement that ARR had surpassed $300 million. Cumulative funding raised across all rounds is estimated at roughly $1.1-1.2 billion.

Business model

B2B enterprise software sold as a subscription/ARR-based cloud service (SASE platform), sold directly to enterprises and through a global network of MSPs, resellers, and channel/distribution partners.

Recurring subscription (ARR) pricing for network + security capacity; reported exceeding $415M ARR with 42% YoY growth as of July 2026.