Cato Networks Launches New Partner Program, Targets SASE Market

Cato Networks aims to improve onboarding, increase margin and expand partner revenue streams with its new channel program.

The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company said it designed the new Cato Partner Program to help partners shorten their sales cycle. The company said the program doesn’t require partners to get vendor approval for every discount they offer, “enabling partners to progress deals independently.”

Cato Networks chief revenue officer Alon Alter said partners have been winning 80% of deals after completing a proof-of-concept.

Cato Networks’ Alon Alter

“We’ve analyzed what works with partner programs — and what doesn’t,” Alter said. “We believe in supporting our partners but at the same time giving them maximum independence.”

The program includes two tiers, and both offer free training and certification. Qualified partners can access free demo licenses, equipment and market development funds.

Members use Cato’s updated partner portal for onboarding, training, deal registration and pipeline management. Tim Sullivan, CEO of Cato partner Coevolve, said Cato has made the onboarding process a “rapid and natural fit.”

“The market for integrated network and security capabilities has evolved rapidly for multinational enterprise,” Sullivan said. “Being able to easily connect all of their locations and roaming users to applications bypassing Internet congestion is a real game changer.”

Cato is styling itself as a secure access service edge (SASE) platform provider. Gartner listed the company in its WAN edge infrastructure Magic Quadrant last year, but the research firm recently unveiled the new SASE term. Cato secure networking evangelist Dave Greenfield published a blog that laid out four key SASE attributes: identity-driven, cloud-native, supporting all edges, and globally distributive.

“Partnering with Cato opened new options for us to grow our business. It has allowed us to take a differentiated proposition to the channel. With digital transformation, the new security and networking needs are perfectly addressed by the SASE approach,” said Sean Remnant, chief security officer for value-added distributor Ignition Technology.

Cato’s Shlomo Kramer

Cato CEO and co-founder Shlomo Kramer said his company aims to simply the partnering process as it also aims to simplify networking.

“We enable partners to profit from digital transformation no matter the opportunity, whether it’s SD-WAN as an MPLS replacement, secure branch Internet access, optimized global connectivity, facilitating cloud adoption, or mobile access,” Kramer said.

Yoji Ota, manager at value-added distributor Macnica Networks Corp.,, said the partner has benefited from Cato’s focus on the cloud.

“Offering a subscription service has made forecasting much, much easier,” Ota said. “We’ve been able to accumulate reoccurring sales revenue that will lead to stable profits for years to come.”

Cato announced a $55 million funding round in January and promised to invest and expand in engineering, service infrastructure, sales and marketing. We interviewed Cato’s vice president of Americas sales during the summer.