The 10 Hottest Networking Startups Of 2022

From those specializing in hybrid cloud-based offerings and Networking as a Service to Secure Access Service Edge and private 5G, here are 10 of the hottest networking startups of 2022.

Bring In The New

What a time to be a networking newcomer. Networking startups are making a name for themselves by starting at the edge, harnessing new kinds of connectivity and leading with a hybrid cloud approach. Not to mention they are all about embracing the new ways that businesses are looking to buy IT, including subscription-based services.

Networking startups are bursting onto the scene and giving some of the largest vendors a run for their money. Still, there’s room for even the market incumbents to partner with these startups. Networking and SD-WAN companies such as Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, and Versa Networks are choosing to team with startups because of their fresh takes on private 5G, managed networking offerings and next-generation connectivity options. Meanwhile, some startups are filling holes in the market around consumption-based or managed network offerings, as well as edge networking, next-generation data center networking and Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE. One thing that the incumbents and market newcomers have in common? They recognize the power of the channel and are tapping MSPs and resellers for help getting the word out on the new ways to handle networking requirements.

From those specializing in hybrid cloud-based offerings and Networking as a Service to cellular connectivity and 5G, here 10 of the hottest networking startups of 2022.

Alkira

CEO: Amir Khan

Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.

Multi-cloud networking startup Alkira emerged from stealth mode in 2020 with its consumption-based Cloud Services Exchange (CSX), a unified, on-demand offering that lets cloud architects and network engineers build and deploy a multi-cloud network in minutes. Since then, the company has unveiled a collaboration with the Microsoft for Startups program, as well as a deeper relationship with Amazon Web Services, whose Marketplace includes Alkira CSX.

Alkira in June launched Cloud Area Networking, a next-generation networking offering. The offering is a full stack, edge-to-cloud enterprise-grade network with built-in routing and network services, according to the company. Alkira is going to market primarily though channel partners, and in 2021 the company inked a partnership with its first master agent, Telarus.

Aviatrix

CEO: Steve Mullaney

Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.

Hybrid cloud network startup Aviatrix Systems is making a name for itself by offering visibility into complex, multi-cloud networks for enterprises asking for cloud-native networking offerings that support new ways of accessing applications via what it refers to as Intelligent Cloud Networking.

The company goes to market with partners and is especially seeking out those solution providers that aren’t tied to the on-premises world. Aviatrix has doubled its revenue every year since its start in 2018 and in August said it planned to hit the public market within the next 18 months and reach more than $3 billion in annual revenue in five years.

Celona

CEO: Rajeev Shah

Headquarters: Cupertino, Calif.

Enterprise 5G startup Celona was founded in 2019 and in 2020 brought to market its platform that makes LTE and 5G a reliable and viable wireless option for enterprise connectivity. In addition to the platform, the company revealed a strategic partnership with Aruba for the reselling of Celona’s cellular products.

Celona was founded by a team that has been part of companies like Qualcomm and Cisco Systems and has experience building chipsets, cloud-based software, and Wi-Fi and cellular offerings. Celona in June launched a new partner program for resellers, MSPs and systems integrators called the Fanatics channel program, which came on the heels of closing its $60 million Series C funding round in March.

Graphiant

Founder, CEO: Khalid RazaHeadquarters: San Jose, Calif.

Edge networking upstart Graphiant emerged from stealth mode in September, ready to take aim at market incumbents like Cisco and other competing SD-WAN players.

The market newcomer is delivering MPLS-level connectivity between the enterprise WAN, hybrid cloud, network edge, customers and partners. Its offering is delivered as a service through the Graphiant Network Edge. The company told CRN this fall that it’s solving a big networking problem that existing SD-WAN player are not listening to—increasingly distributed workloads and network complexity that is in turn creating more complexity and security issues for businesses.

Graphiant plans on doing all of its business through the channel. The company has raised $33.5 million in Series A funding backed by Sequoia Capital, Two Bear Capital and Atlantic Bridge.

ngena

CEO: Bart de GraaffHeadquarters: Frankfurt, Germany

ngena is an SD-WAN -as-a-Service company that is helping to transform networking for the era of cloud. The company in October unveiled a partnership with SD-WAN giant Versa Networks in which the addition of Versa to ngena’s platform will allow customers to choose from leading SD-WAN vendors and design their networks according to their individual needs, according to ngena.

Founded in 2016, ngena has raised a total of $285.7 million in funding with its latest round occurring in 2021 in a Series C funding round led by Friends and Founders Round.

Nile

CEO: Pankaj PatelHeadquarters: San Jose, Calif.

Another newcomer that burst onto the scene this year is Nile, a Networking-as-a-Service startup, which exited stealth mode in September.

Nile is the latest brainchild of former Cisco Executive Chairman and CEO John Chambers, alongside co-founder Pankaj Patel, Cisco’s former executive vice president and chief development officer. The startup is entering the market with a “reimagined” wired and wireless service delivered entirely as a service. The offering will give channel partners and their midmarket and enterprise customers network simplicity, security and performance while lowering the total cost of ownership, the company told CRN.

Nile launched with its partner program in tow, Nile Connect. The company has raised about $125 million

through Chambers’ investment firm, JC2 Ventures. Other investors include March Capital, 8VC and Iconiq Capital.

Perimeter 81

CEO: Amit BareketHeadquarters: Tel Aviv, Israely

Fast-growing SASE specialist Perimeter 81 was heads-down-focused on cloud-based networking and security, but the company in 2021 entered the SASE arena. Four-year-old Perimeter 81’s offerings can replace legacy and open-source VPN offerings.

The company, which also has offices in New York City and Los Angeles, in 2021 launched a channel partner program for MSPs. In June, Perimeter 81 closed a Series C $100 million funding round led by B Capital at a $1 billion valuation, which reportedly made the company worth about five times more than after its previous funding round in 2020. The company said it has “doubled” its annual recurring revenue.

Prosimo

CEO: Ramesh PrabagaranHeaduarters: Santa Clara, Calif.

Founded in 2019, multi-cloud networking disrupter Prosimo emerged from stealth mode with its Application eXperience Infrastructure (AXI) platform that is modernizing and simplifying application delivery and experience across multi-cloud environments. The Prosimo platform can coexist with existing vendors in a customer’s environment or can be used to replace certain tools and features, such as zero-trust or cloud peering, according to tcompany.

The startup in January launched an official partner program. At the same time, the company scooped up Timoteo Prietto, the former channel leader of one of its biggest competitors, Aviatrix, to head up its channel efforts.

Rockport Networks

CEO: Phil HarrisHeadquarters: Ottawa, Ontario

Data center networking newcomer Rockport Networks emerged from stealth mode in 2021 with its “switchless” network architecture that can provide customers with the performance and scalability necessary for demanding computing workloads, such as high-performance computing technologies, AI and machine learning. Rockport Networks said its switchless offering can deliver an average of 28 percent reduction in workload completion times under load and a 3X decrease in end-to-end latency compared with traditional networks.

The company has raised a total of $66.8 million over five funding rounds, with the latest funding round raised in 2021 led by Northern Private Capital. In June, the company brought on data center industry executive Harris as its new CEO.

Trustgrid

Co-Founder, CEO: Joe GleinserHeadquarters: Austin, Texas

TrustGrid comes to market with a platform that combines SD-WAN, edge computing and zero-trust remote access that lets operators and cloud software providers manage and support distributed application environments from the cloud to the edge. The platform lets users managed and support hundreds of networks on one interface, the company said.

The privately held provider goes to market through channel partners. Five-year-old TrustGrid in September revealed a partnership with Level 3 Audiovisual that combines TrustGrid’s technology with Level 3’s software to deliver and support advanced AV software to customers across corporate America, higher education, health care, government and hospitality, the two companies said.

Versa Networks Selected to Provide SD-WAN, Zero Trust Access and Customer Edge Security Stack (CESS) for DISA’s Thunderdome Program

Versa Products in Thunderdome to Provide Zero Trust Access at the Network Edge for DISA On-Premises Users

SANTA CLARA, Calif., December 06, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Versa Networks, the global leader in AI/ML-powered Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN), today announced it has been selected to provide SD-WAN, Zero Trust access and Customer Edge Security Stack (CESS) functions for Thunderdome, the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) zero trust network access (ZTNA) and application security architecture. Versa products within the Thunderdome architecture provide conditional Zero Trust access at the network edge for DISA users.

"We’re deeply thrilled to be selected as part of Thunderdome, which is pioneering the application of Zero Trust to secure network access for both remote and on-network users," said Kelly Ahuja, CEO of Versa Networks. "We are proud that our team was able to successfully demonstrate the use of our secure SD-WAN and Customer Edge Security Stack services to help meet Thunderdome’s rigorous Zero Trust requirements. This selection further establishes Versa as a premier provider of secure networking and Zero Trust networking technology."

Thunderdome’s components work together to modernize DISA’s infrastructure and integrate with other agency efforts to increase automation, efficiency and security. SD-WAN functions delivered by Versa will provide software-defined routing across the Defense Information System Network (DISN), and Versa’s CESS functions will deliver Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), IPS/IDS, and on-premises ZTNA (conditional access) services.

What is Thunderdome?

Thunderdome is DISA’s ZTNA architecture. DISA’s recently completed Thunderdome prototype successfully proved that commercial technologies, including Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Customer Edge Security Stack (CESS) and Application Security Stacks, can improve both security and network performance in an existing enterprise environment. Following the successful completion of the prototype, DISA awarded a follow-on production Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement for Thunderdome to Booz Allen Hamilton.

Story continues

DISA’s Thunderdome solution aligns with several federal cybersecurity modernization efforts, including the U.S. President’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, the DoD Zero Trust Strategy and Roadmap, and the DoD CIO’s Digital Modernization Strategy.

"We are proud of our partnership with DISA to successfully deliver the Thunderdome prototype, and we look forward to working together to take this solution into full production," said Imran Umar, a vice president spearheading Booz Allen’s zero trust practice. "While organizations around the world are embracing the tenets of zero trust, DISA is truly pioneering the deployment of zero trust network access for both remote and on-premises users. We are excited to work with Versa as a strategic partner to provide SD-WAN, ZTNA and CESS functionality to help deliver this vision."

About Versa Unified SASE

Versa’s AI/ML-powered single-vendor Unified SASE delivers organically developed best-of-breed functions that tightly integrate and deliver services via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both, managed through a single pane of glass. Versa delivers SASE services such as Secure SD-WAN, Next-Generation Firewall, Next-Generation Firewall as a Service, Cloud Network Firewall, Unified Threat Management (UTM) including Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI), and User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA). Versa’s single-vendor Unified SASE platform goes above and beyond management console automation by providing the ability to integrate networks, points of presence, policy definitions, application definitions, agent logic, and data lakes.

About Versa Networks

Versa Networks, the leader in single-vendor Unified SASE platforms, delivers AI/ML-powered SSE and SD-WAN solutions. The platform provides networking and security with true multitenancy, and sophisticated analytics via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both to meet SASE requirements for small to extremely large enterprises and Service Providers. Thousands of customers globally with hundreds of thousands of sites and millions of users trust Versa with their mission critical networks and security. Versa Networks is privately held and funded by Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, Artis Ventures, Verizon Ventures, Comcast Ventures, BlackRock Inc., Liberty Global Ventures, Princeville Capital, RPS Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners. For more information, visit https://www.versa-networks.com or follow Versa Networks on X (Twitter) @versanetworks.

Versa Networks, VOS, the Versa logo, and Versa Titan are or may be registered trademarks of Versa Networks, Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231206955661/en/

Contacts

Dan Spaldingdspalding@versa-networks.com(408) 960-9297

Dell’Oro Group Again Ranks Versa Networks as the Current Worldwide Unified SASE Market Share Leader