Cato Networks acquired Aim Security to expand its Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform with dedicated AI security capabilities. The deal marks Cato’s first acquisition and comes as the company surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue. Cato also extended its Series G funding round to $409 million with an additional $50 million investment from Acrew Capital.
Aim Security, founded in 2022, delivers a broad AI security platform covering three major areas: securing employee use of public AI applications, protecting private AI applications and agents with its AI Firewall, and enforcing AI security posture management (AI-SPM) across the AI development lifecycle. Aim’s research team recently uncovered the first reported zero-click AI vulnerability in Microsoft 365 Copilot, known as “EchoLeak” (CVE-2025-32711).
Cato plans to integrate Aim’s capabilities into the Cato SASE Cloud Platform, extending visibility and policy enforcement to all AI interactions, including users, agents, and models. The company will support modular adoption of new AI security features and expects to offer Aim’s technology natively within the Cato SASE platform in early 2026.
- Cato’s first-ever acquisition targets AI security
- Annual recurring revenue now exceeds $300 million
- Series G financing expanded to $409 million with Acrew Capital
- Aim Security secures AI usage, private AI apps, and development lifecycle
- Integration planned into Cato SASE Cloud Platform by early 2026
“AI transformation will eclipse digital transformation as the main force that will shape enterprises over the next decade,” said Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato Networks.
🌐 Analysis: Cato’s move highlights how SASE platforms are evolving beyond network security to serve as control points for enterprise AI adoption. Unlike proxy-based or appliance-centric competitors, Cato built its platform cloud-native from the ground up, giving it full-stack visibility across all network flows and AI interactions. This architectural approach has been a key differentiator, enabling Cato to deliver consistent performance and policy enforcement globally without the complexity of stitching together multiple products.
The company’s strategy has also centered on simplicity of adoption. Cato offers a modular licensing model that allows enterprises to onboard capabilities—SD-WAN, SSE, ZTNA, and now AISEC—gradually, without re-architecting their networks. This contrasts with some rivals that require customers to manage separate services or appliances for AI-specific security. By integrating Aim Security’s platform, Cato extends this unified approach to AI, covering public AI usage, internal AI applications, and AI development lifecycles under a single operational framework.
Founded in 2015 by security entrepreneur Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz, Cato Networks is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. Kramer, a co-founder of Check Point and Imperva, serves as CEO. The company has raised more than $770 million to date and now exceeds $300 million in annual recurring revenue. Key milestones include launching the industry’s first cloud-native SASE platform, building a private global backbone spanning more than 80 PoPs, and securing over 100 patents related to cloud security and networking. These achievements have positioned Cato as one of the fastest-scaling private security companies, with a strong technology foundation to support its AI-focused expansion.
Competitors such as Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, and Cloudflare are all racing to embed AI safeguards into their security clouds. However, Cato’s combination of cloud-native SASE architecture, global backbone, and converged licensing positions it differently—as a provider that can simplify AI adoption without adding operational overhead. With ARR now above $300M and a fresh $409M funding round, Cato is signaling that it intends to scale aggressively while using AI security as the next catalyst for growth.
