Cato Networks Hits $2.5 Billion Valuation

Business
Cato Networks

Cato Networks Team from company Facebook page

Cato Networks, an Israeli startup and unicorn that provides the world’s first Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform, has now hit a $2.5 billion valuation. The new valuation comes after Cato Networks raised $200 million in a round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Cato Networks already hit unicorn status less than a year ago when it hit the billion plus valuation mark after a $130 million round of funding held in November, 2020. The company has now brought in a total of $532 million in investments to date.

But how does that figure translate into being worth two and a half billion dollars?

A valuation is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for a share of a company which is privately held. So if someone agreed to pay $10 million for just 1% of Cato Networks then the company is worth $1 billion.

But this is based on what investors believe a company will be worth in the future. A company which is already publically traded has a total value based on its stock price. And every company has a real bottom line value based on its assets and revenues minus any debt.

Founded in 2015 Cato Networks SASE platform converges SD-WAN and network security into a global, cloud-native service. Cato optimizes and secures applications access for all users and locations.

Cato Networks boasts that its Cato SASE Cloud is distributed across more than 65 PoPs worldwide. Cato says that today many enterprises spend more than $250,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with Cato, an increase of 163% year-over-year, and several global enterprises spend over $1 million in ARR.

Cato is at the forefront of SASE transformation,” said Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks. “Large enterprises are deploying Cato as their global network to reap the operational and business benefits of Cato’s proven and mature SASE platform. Cato is rapidly expanding its service capabilities, global footprint, and sales and marketing teams, while preserving our unique DNA of agility, simplicity, and ease of doing business that is so valued by customers and partners.”