Zero-trust networking and security startup Perimeter 81 today joined the secure access service edge (SASE) party with partner SonicWall.

Their new product integrates Perimeter 81’s zero-trust networking platform with SonicWall’s security services. These services are cloud-delivered — this is a key component of SASE — and initially they include content filtering, application control, intrusion prevention, file sandboxing, real-time deep memory inspection, and antivirus.

Perimeter 81 CEO and co-founder Amit Bareket says his company will continue rolling out additional security features on top of its platform throughout 2020 starting with web filtering and DNS filtering this quarter. SonicWall’s firewall service is up next on the list, and Perimeter 81 also plans to partner with other security vendors to offer additional services — like software-as-a-service security and endpoint protection — by the end of the year.

“We believe there is a space race right now for SASE,” Bareket said. “Perimeter 81 is positioned very, very strongly to win it.”

Gartner coined the term SASE last year for this new type of network security architecture that consolidates networking and security capabilities into an edge cloud-delivered service. Fellow analyst firm ESG calls this model “Elastic Cloud Gateways,” but, likely for buzziness reasons, this phrase hasn’t taken off like SASE.

Since, then, however, several SD-WAN and security vendors including Cato Networks, Infoblox, Netskope, VMware, Palo Alto Networks, and Zscaler, have jumped on the hype train whether their products are truly SASE or not.

This cloud-delivered model is the future of security, according to Perimeter 81 and others, and Bareket expects SASE to skyrocket to a more than $100 billion market. The perimeter is dead. Cloud, mobility, edge computing, and (soon) 5G killed it, Bareket added.

“It doesn’t make sense any longer to protect the perimeter,” he said. “We believe that the traditional firewall and traditional network appliance, which is a market of 10s of billions of dollars, and will go from $2 billion a year now in 10 years down to almost zero, if not absolute zero.”

SASE sits on the other end of this scale, Bareket added. “SASE will grow from hundreds of millions of dollars into over $100 billion dollars in just five to 10 years.”

Part of Perimeter 81’s plan to win this lucrative SASE space race is through partnerships, he said. In addition to SonicWall, Perimeter 81’s platform also integrates with Splunk.

Bareket launched Perimeter 81 in 2018 with co-founder Sagi Gidali who now serves as the company’s chief product officer. Perimeter 81 is their second joint cybersecurity venture. The two met at Tel Aviv University in 2012 and went on to found SaferVPN, which internet and media conglomerate J2 Global acquired last year.

The startup began selling its zero-trust, software-defined perimeter service in 2018, and Gartner named it a “Cool Vendor” in Network and Cyber-Physical Systems Security in 2019.

Bareket says his company saw 400% year-over-year revenue growth between 2018 and 2019. More than 500 organizations use Perimeter 81, and more than 81% of Perimeter 81’s customers use it as their secure corporate network, replacing the need for a VPN, he added.

Late last year, the startup announced a $10 million Series A investment round led by SonicWall along with a partnership with that company. It also announced its move into SASE. “Each company will provide a unified network and security platform that will be a one-stop-shop for network and security offerings as a service,” the partners said at the time. And now, the new product makes good on this promise.

Looking ahead, Perimeter plans to add more security services and integrations to its platform. Bareket expects the larger market to follow suit. “The biggest thing we are going to see is unification of different security services to a single console,” he said. “We will see less vendors but more type of integrations and add-ons.”

He described this as a “very exciting time” for the networking security industry: “I called it a space race, and I expect things will change rapidly over the next three years. Our goal as a company is to be a market leader,” he added. “Time will tell if we were right or wrong.”