Cato Networks signs Nuvias as first pan-European distributor

Just a matter of weeks after securing its latest round of private investment, Cato Networks has signed its first pan-European distributor.

The software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) player was given $77m in its largest funding round so far at the start of April, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, taking the total it has received to $200m.

The firm made it clear that the broad plan was to use those funds to continue to build on the momentum the business enjoyed last year, with a 220% increase in bookings, and the solid start it had made to 2020.

Part of that strategy involved investing more with the channel, and Cato has appointed Nuvias as its first pan-European distributor.

Nuvias will be taking the vendor’s secure access service-edge platform out to market, as well as providing training and pitching it alongside other cloud-based security solutions it already offers.

Cato is aiming to take a slice of the $70bn managed network services market and is looking to arm resellers with a proposition that is an alternative argument for those customers that are looking to cut their legacy MPLS costs and move towards more of a cloud-based managed services approach.

The vendor has stated that the key differentiator between its solutions and legacy networks built from multiple point solutions and telco services was that its technology connects and secures an entire enterprise including remote users, sites, applications and clouds with a global service.

It has also claimed the first true implementation of Gartner’s SASE framework that converges SD-WAN and network security for all enterprise edges into the cloud.

“We’re excited to be working with Nuvias and empowering EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] channel partners to profit from cloud migration and the rest of the digital transformation initiatives driving WAN transformation,” said Luca Simonelli, vice-president of sales, EMEA, at Cato Networks.

“At a time when enterprises are increasingly looking to adopt network and security services, talented, educated channel partners are needed to answer the challenging requirements facing business customers,” he added.

Nuvias is a distributor that prides itself on providing the support that resellers need to develop solutions that often combine numerous vendors from its portfolio and has a strong background in both networking, with Zycko, and security thanks to Wick Hill.

Paul Eccleston, Nuvias executive chairman, said that it would be leaning on the existing security and networking expertise to deliver the same results for Cato.

“Nuvias’s channel partners stand to benefit from an innovative addition to our advanced networking portfolio. Cato’s cloud-native platform can be tailored to address a host of business challenges, enabling cost-efficiency and convergence through a simple, transparent architecture,” he said.

“We are excited to support our channel partners by delivering tailored services enabling easily deployed solutions for business,” he added.