Networking and security startup Cato Networks nabbed another service provider victory this week after Expereo tapped the vendor for managed secure access service edge (SASE).

The Amsterdam-based managed service provider offers a number of SD-WAN, cloud-security, and networking services, including last-mile connectivity to more than 190 countries.

“By extending our edge service portfolio and combining it with the Expereo Connect and Cloud services, we are securing both the underlay and overlay solutions they need for optimizing secure access into on-premises and in cloud applications. By incorporating the Cato platform into our service offering, we can now serve our customers even better,” Luc van de Leijgraaf, director of partner sales at Expereo, said in a statement.

The news comes just a week after the service provider launched a series of new SD-WAN gateways designed to interface with customers’ existing WAN infrastructure. The gateways take advantage of the service provider’s BGP optimization capabilities to improve communications with software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud services, Expereo claimed.

Cato was an early champion of Gartner’s SASE product category, which stitches together elements of SD-WAN, managed security, and edge compute in a single cloud-managed package. In the two years since SASE's inception, the product category has exploded as enterprises reevaluate their security perimeters in the wake of the pandemic.

Cato's networking and security stack is distributed across more than 65 global points of presence. And while the platform is available via a SaaS model, the company is increasingly turning to managed service providers to extend the platform’s reach.

Today’s announcement marks Cato’s latest MSP win since opening its SASE and managed detection and response (MDR) capabilities up to service providers. Cato's first MSP contract came in early 2021 when Japan-based service provider KDDI tapped the startup for managed SASE in the Americas, Europe, and Asian Pacific. Since then, Cato has announced deals with Horizon Telecom, Ignition Technology, and Surecraft.

These wins, alongside a steady stream of new product capabilities, have helped the startup secure hundreds of millions in new funding, including a $200 million funding round last October, which drove the vendor's valuation to roughly $2.5 billion.

Cato’s continued focus on service provider partnerships comes as enterprises grapple with growing networking and security complexity.

These trends will likely drive a shift in customer preference toward managed services providers, argued Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK Research, in an earlier interview with SDxCentral. “I think we’re going to see a pretty big shift this year in SD-WAN away from do it yourself to managed services."