SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Versa Networks, a SaaS company and the leader in secure access service edge (SASE), today announced that it has earned a Black Unicorn Award for 2021.

Versa Networks competed against many of the industry’s leading providers of cybersecurity products and services for this prestigious award. The term “Black Unicorn” signifies a cybersecurity company that has the future potential to reach a $1 billion dollar market value as determined by private or public investment. These awards showcase those companies with this kind of incredible potential in the cybersecurity marketplace.

“It’s exciting to see Versa Networks has been named among other cybersecurity industry leaders in our third annual Black Unicorn awards,” said Judges Robert R. Ackerman Jr. of www.allegiscyber.com, David DeWalt of www.nightdragon.com, Dr. Peter Stephenson of Cyber Defense Labs and Gary Miliefsky of www.cyberdefensemediagroup.com.

Versa Networks offers Versa SASE as a SaaS, delivering tightly integrated services via the cloud, on-premises, or as a blended combination of both via Versa Operating System (VOS(TM)) with a Single-Pass Parallel Processing architecture and managed through a single pane of glass. Versa began delivering SASE services such as VPN, Secure SD-WAN, Edge Compute Protection, Next-Generation Firewall, Next-Generation Firewall as a Service, Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) five years ago. Versa uniquely provides contextual security based on user, role, device, application, location, security posture of the device, and content. As the leader in the fastest growing security and networking category, SASE, and executing on SASE services for years, Versa is the only solution proven to deliver the industry’s leading and differentiated architecture for high performance and security. Gartner has identified Versa SASE as having the most SASE components out of all 56 vendors Gartner evaluated. Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) also found that Versa SASE has the most SASE supported functions, as published in its 2021 industry report.

“Versa is recognized as a leader in the security industry, and as the leader in SASE, for its unique integration of networking and security SASE services via the cloud or, if customers prefer, delivered on-premises or as a blended combination of both,” said Michael Wood, Chief Marketing Officer for Versa Networks. “Enterprises both large and small, as well as service providers, look to Versa as a strategic partner to address their complex secure access, networking and digital transformation needs. Only Versa has been recognized industry wide, including by leading industry analysts, as having the leading SASE solution delivering the most SASE services out of the growing competitive field, including having the only solution architected since day one specifically to tightly integrate networking and security services required for SASE. Versa is the modern secure network.”

Unlike competing solutions, Versa SASE was built from the ground up to deliver a tightly integrated SASE solution within a single software stack managed via a single interface, eliminating service chaining, cascading, and virtual interconnect between services, which is required by competitors. Competing solutions have hidden costs and gaps in security because they require multiple product and service components. Achieving visibility and control from solutions requiring service chaining to connect multiple components together proves ineffective, increasing the costs and attack surfaces for organizations.

About Cyber Defense Awards

This is Cyber Defense Magazine’s 9th year of honoring cybersecurity innovators, in this case the Black Unicorn Awards for 2021 on its Cyber Defense Awards platform. In this competition, judges for these prestigious awards included cybersecurity industry veterans, trailblazers and market makers Gary Miliefsky of CDMG, Dr. Peter Stephenson of CDMG, Robert R. Ackerman Jr. of Allegis Cyber and David DeWalt of NightDragon, with much appreciation to emeritus judge Robert Herjavec of Herjavec Group. To see the complete list of finalists for the Black Unicorn Awards for 2021 please visit https://cyberdefenseawards.com/black-unicorn-awards-finalists-2021/.

About Versa Networks

Versa Networks, a SaaS company and the leader in SASE, combines extensive security, advanced networking, industry-leading SD-WAN, genuine 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, and via the simplified Versa Titan cloud service designed for Lean IT. Thousands of customers globally with hundreds of thousands of sites trust Versa with their networks, security, and clouds. Versa Networks is privately held and funded by Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, Artis Ventures, Verizon Ventures, Comcast Ventures, 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 Twitter @versanetworks.

Versa Networks, VOS, the Versa logo, and Versa Titan are or may be registered trademarks of Versa Networks, Inc. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.