Versa Networks announced a $120 million pre-IPO funding round to expand go-to-market strategies and accelerate its secure access service edge (SASE) innovations.

The funding round, led by BlackRock, will set Versa on its planned IPO path, according to the company.

CEO Kelly Ahuja said based on what Versa is “hearing from the investment banks,” the window to going public “will likely open up 1.5 to 2 years from now.”

“The financing that we've secured is really about expanding and accelerating our go to market expansion, and our innovations that we're driving,” he told SDxCentral.

With regards to the possibility of a nigh recession, Ahuja said that luckily, the “cybersecurity space seems to be immune from all the macro conditions that are going on.”

“Our business has still been growing very healthily over the last few years,” he added.

Kumar Mehta, co-founder and chief development officer, said the Versa funding will focus on developing technologies like zero-trust LAN, meaning “bringing the whole [zero-trust network access] technology into the campus.”

Additionally, Mehta said the vendor will hone in on implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities into its campus and SASE offering.

Gartner recently named Versa as a “recognized vendor” in its Guide to Single-Vendor SASE, establishing the vendor as a leader in the space for SASE – Gartner’s term for the convergence of SD-WAN and security as a cloud-delivered service.

Ahuja expects cybersecurity will continue to be of top priority for customers, and said that within cybersecurity, there's been “some structural tailwinds, which are really driven by the shift or acceleration to cloud, the hybrid workforce.”

Enterprises have been challenged with figuring out how they can allow workers to connect but also protect their organization, users, devices, and workloads. “And the workloads are going everywhere in all multiple clouds, so that's the market that SASE addresses,” Ahuja explained. “We're seeing a lot of traction in our business. And that's what we needed to do, is go raise this additional financing to help us scale the business.”

According to Gartner, the SASE market is expected to grow to $15 billion in 2025, and 80% of enterprises will have a strategy to unify web, cloud services, and private application access using a SASE architecture.

“It’s not so much about the IPO but it's really about the business,” Ahuja said. “The market is there and the market is hot. And being a key leader in this space, it's our opportunity to help more customers expand our footprint and our coverage globally with our go-to-market."

Photo: Versa CEO Kelly Ahuja. Source: Versa Networks