Cybersecurity Startup Cato Networks Secures $55M Funding Round

Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity startup Cato Networks raised $55 million in an investment round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from current investors including Aspect Ventures, Greylock Partners, Singtel Innov8, USVP, as well as co-founders Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz.

Kramer, also the co-founder of cybertech giant Check Point, and Shatz, founded Cato Networks in 2015. The latest funding round brings the startup’s total capital raised to $125 million.

Cato Networks develops network security as a service, integrating secure web gateway, firewall as a service, advanced threat protection, next-generation firewall, and secure, global SD-WAN (software-defined WAN) into a single, cloud service called Cato Cloud.

“Cato closes the huge gap between the needs of the digital business, and the rigid, slow, and expensive networks provided by legacy telcos, using a groundbreaking cloud-native carrier architecture,” Kramer said in a statement. “Cato is powered by cloud-scale software, self-service management, and elastic compute and bandwidth to provide the new foundation for the growth of the business.”

“Cato is a transformative force in the stagnant managed network services market,” said Yoni Cheifetz, partner at Lightspeed. “Businesses are looking for an affordable, agile, and scalable network to drive strategic initiatives like global expansion, hybrid cloud, and workforce mobility. Today’s rigid networks aren’t built to support this growth and this is the multi-billion dollar market opportunity Cato is going after.”

Cato says over 300 enterprises worldwide rely on the company to connect and secure their corporate networks. The company has offices in Singapore and the US, in addition to Israel.