Buyers, together with enterprise capitalists (VCs), are betting $359 million that safe entry service edge (SASE) will change into a main consolidator of enterprise safety tech stacks.
Cato Community’s oversubscribed Collection G spherical final week demonstrates that buyers view SASE as able to driving vital consolidation throughout its core and adjoining markets. Now valued at $4.8 billion, Cato not too long ago reported 46% year-over-year (YoY) progress in annual recurring income (ARR) for 2024, outpacing the SASE market. Cato will use the funding to advance AI-driven safety, speed up innovation throughout SASE, prolonged detection and response (XDR), zero belief community entry (ZTNA), SD-WAN, and IoT/OT, and strengthen its international attain by scaling companion and customer-facing groups.
Gartner initiatives the SASE market will develop at a compound annual progress price (CAGR) of 26%, reaching $28.5 billion by 2028.
The implied, actual message is that SASE will do to safety stacks what cloud computing did to information facilities: Consolidate dozens of level options into unified platforms. Gartner’s newest forecast for worldwide SASE exhibits organizations favoring a dual-vendor strategy, shifting from a 4:1 ratio to 2:1 by 2028, one other strong sign that consolidation is on the best way.
Cashing in on consolidation
Consolidating tech stacks as a progress technique isn’t a brand new strategy in cybersecurity, or in broader enterprise software program. Cloud-native utility safety platform (CNAPP) and XDR platforms have relied on promoting consolidation for years. Buyers main Cato’s newest spherical are basing their funding thesis on the confirmed dynamic that CISOs are at all times searching for methods to scale back the variety of apps to enhance visibility and decrease upkeep prices.
VentureBeat usually hears from CISOs that complexity is likely one of the best enemies of safety. Software sprawl is killing the power to attain step-wise effectivity positive aspects. Whereas CISOs need larger simplicity and are keen to drive larger consolidation, many have inherited inordinately complicated and high-cost legacy expertise stacks, full with a big base of instruments and functions for managing networks and safety concurrently.
Nikesh Arora, Palo Alto Networks chairman and CEO, acknowledged the impression of consolidations, saying not too long ago: “Customers are actually onto it. They want consolidation because they are undergoing three of the biggest transformations ever: A network security transformation and a cloud transformation, and many of them are unaware … they’re about to go through a security operations center transformation.”
A current examine by IBM in collaboration with Palo Alto Networks discovered that the common group has 83 completely different safety options from 29 distributors. Nearly all of executives (52%) say complexity is the most important obstacle to safety operations, and it could actually price as much as 5% of income. Misconfigurations are frequent, making it tough and time-consuming to troubleshoot safety gaps. Consolidating cybersecurity merchandise reduces complexity, streamlines the variety of apps and improves total effectivity.
On the subject of capitalizing on consolidation in a given market, timing is essential. Adversaries are well-known for mining legacy CVEs and launching residing off the land (LOTL) assaults through the use of normal instruments to breach and penetrate networks. Multivendor safety architectures usually have gaps that IT and safety groups are unaware of till an intrusion try or breach happens as a result of complexity of multicloud, proprietary app, and platform integrations.
Enterprises lose the power to guard the proliferating variety of ephemeral identities, together with Kubernetes containers and machine and human identities, as each endpoint and system is assigned. Closing the gaps in infrastructure, app, cloud, identification and community safety fuels consolidation.
What CISOs are saying
Steward Well being CISO Esmond Kane advises: “Understand that — at its core — SASE is zero trust. We’re talking about identity, authentication, access control and privilege. Start there and then build out.”
Legacy community architectures are famend for poor consumer experiences and broad safety gaps. In keeping with Hughes’ 2025 State of Safe Community Entry Report, 45% of senior IT and safety leaders undertake SASE to consolidate SD-WAN and safety right into a unified platform. Nearly all of organizations, 75%, are pursuing vendor consolidation, up from 29% simply three years in the past. CISOs imagine consolidating their tech stacks will assist them keep away from lacking threats (57%) and cut back the necessity to discover certified safety specialists (56%).
“SASE is an existential threat to all appliance-based network security companies,” Shlomo Kramer, Cato’s CEO, informed VentureBeat. “The vast majority of the market is going to be refactored from appliances to cloud service, which means SASE [is going to be] 80% of the market.”
A elementary architectural transformation is driving that shift. SASE converges historically siloed networking and safety capabilities right into a single, cloud-native service edge. It combines SD-WAN with essential safety capabilities, together with safe net gateway (SWG), cloud entry safety dealer (CASB) and ZTNA to implement coverage and shield information no matter the place customers or workloads reside.
Gartner’s 2024 Magic Quadrant for single-vendor SASE positions Cato Networks, Palo Alto Networks, and Netskope as Leaders, reflecting their maturity, unified platforms and suitability for enterprise-wide deployments.
Why vendor consolidation is reshaping enterprise safety technique
Single-vendor SASE has change into a strategic consideration for safety and infrastructure leaders. In keeping with Gartner, 65% of recent SD-WAN purchases shall be a part of a single-vendor SASE deployment by 2027, up from 20% in 2024. This projected progress displays a broader shift towards unified platforms that cut back coverage fragmentation and enhance visibility throughout customers, units and functions.
In its Magic Quadrant for Single Vendor SASE, Gartner recognized Cato Networks, Palo Alto Networks and Netskope as market leaders based mostly on their differentiated approaches to convergence, consumer expertise and enterprise-scale deployment fashions.
Cato’s Kramer informed VentureBeat: “There is a short window where companies can avoid being caught with fragmented architectures. The attackers are moving faster than integration teams. That is why convergence wins.”
Numbers again Kramer’s warning. AI-enabled assaults are more and more exploiting the 200-millisecond gaps between device handoffs in multivendor stacks. Each unmanaged connection turns into a danger floor.
SASE leaders in contrast
Palo Alto Networks: PANW “has strong security and networking features, delivered via a unified platform,” and advantages from “a proven track record in this market, and a sizable installed base of customers,” Gartner notes. Nevertheless, the corporate’s providing is pricey in comparison with a lot of the different distributors. In addition they flag that the brand new Strata Cloud Supervisor is much less intuitive than its earlier UI.
Netskope: Gartner cites the seller’s “strong feature breadth and depth for both networking and security,” together with a “strong customer experience” and “a strong geographic strategy” as a result of localization and information sovereignty assist. On the identical time, the evaluation highlights operational complexity, noting that “administrators must use multiple consoles to access the full functionality of the platform.” Gartner additionally says that Netskope lacks expertise in comparison with different distributors.
Evaluating the main SASE distributors
VendorPlatform designEase of useAI automation maturityPricing claritySecurity scopeIdeal fitCato NetworksFully unified, cloud-nativeExcellentAdvancing rapidlyPredictable and transparentEnd-to-end native stackMidmarket and enterprise simplicity seekersPalo Alto PrismaSecurity-first integrationModerateMature for safety opsHigher TCOStrong next-generation firewall (NGFW) and ZTNAEnterprises already utilizing Palo NGFWNetskopeInfrastructure controlModerateImproving steadilyClear and structuredStrong CASB and information loss prevention (DLP)Regulated industries and compliance-driven
SASE consolidation indicators enterprise safety’s architectural shift
The SASE consolidation wave reveals how enterprises are basically rethinking safety structure. With AI assaults exploiting integration gaps immediately, single-vendor SASE has change into important for each safety and operational effectivity.
The reasoning is simple. Each vendor handoff creates vulnerability. Every integration provides latency. Safety leaders know that unified platforms might help get rid of these dangers whereas enabling enterprise velocity.
CISOs are more and more demanding a single console, a single agent and unified insurance policies. Multivendor complexity is now a aggressive legal responsibility. SASE consolidation delivers what issues most with fewer distributors, stronger safety and execution at market velocity.
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