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Israel’s Cato Networks said on Monday it had raised $359 million in a funding round, valuing the cybersecurity firm at more than $4.8 billion, as investors bet on growing demand for artificial intelligence-driven security and networking solutions. An uptick in sophisticated cyberattacks has prompted fears of operational disruptions among companies and an increase in investor interest in AI-powered cybersecurity providers. The funding was led by Vitruvian Partners and ION Crossover Partners, along with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Acrew Capital, among others. The latest round brings Cato’s total funding to more than $1 billion. “With analysts projecting information-security outlays to climb at a double-digit clip through 2028, investors continue to treat cybersecurity and zero-trust plumbing as ‘can’t-cut’ line items even as other tech niches cool,” said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital. Cato Networks plans to use the new funds to enhance its AI-driven security capabilities, increase investment in research and development, and expand its global footprint. “Hefty private cash for Cato is less a one-off jackpot than a barometer that big-ticket appetite for cybersecurity is still running hot and that an exit wave through IPO, active secondaries, or acquisition may be warming up behind it,” Schulman said. Reuters had reported last year, citing sources, that the company was gearing up for a potential 2025 IPO. Cato, founded in 2015 by Shlomo Kramer and Gur Shatz, combines network services and security into a single cloud platform known as secure access service edge (SASE). Its SASE solution helps businesses prevent threats, protect data, and quickly respond to incidents. The SASE market is projected to surge to $25 billion by 2027, from $7 billion in 2022, according to Gartner’s 2023 report. Customers listed on the company’s website include Swissport, Carlsberg, Element Solutions, and Komax. By Prakhar Srivastava and Steven Scheer, Reuters
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E-Commerce
An innovative and potentially impactful new device can turn air into drinkable water, even in the driest climates. The tool, which comes from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could be a huge step toward making safe drinking water worldwide a reality. The lack thereof impacts 2.2 billion people, per a study on the invention, which was recently published in the journal Nature Water. The device was developed by Professor Xuanhe Zhao, the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and his colleagues. According to the study, the contraption is made from hydrogel, a material that absorbs water, and lithium salts that can store water molecules. The substance is enclosed between two layers of glass, and at night it pulls water vapor from the atmosphere. During the day, the water condenses and drips into tubes. It is about the size of a standard window, but even in environments that are hot and dry, its able to capture water. Zhao’s team tested the tool in the driest environment in the U.S.Death Valley, California. Even in the ultradry conditions, the tool was able to capture 160 milliliters of water per day (about two-thirds of a cup).The success of the model has the scientists thinking on a bigger scale. We have built a meter-scale device that we hope to deploy in resource-limited regions, where even a solar cell is not very accessible, says Zhao, per MIT News. He continued: Its a test of feasibility in scaling up this water-harvesting technology. Now people can build it even larger, or make it into parallel panels, to supply drinking water to people and achieve real impact. The new design addresses several issues that past similar devices have come up against. It’s better at absorbing water than metal-organic frameworks that can also capture water from air. The new design, which has a sophisticated composition and added materials, is also better at limiting salt leakage. During the experiment, that meant that the water collected met criteria for safe drinking water. We imagine that you could one day deploy an array of these panels, and the footprint is very small because they are all vertical, Zhao says. Then you could have many panels together, collecting water all the time, at household scale.
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E-Commerce
Two key U.S. Republican senators agreed to a revised federal moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence to five years and to allow states to adopt rules on child online safety and protecting artists’ images or likelinesses. Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz originally proposed securing compliance by blocking states that regulate AI from a $42 billion broadband infrastructure fund as part of a broad tax and budget bill. A revised version released last week would only restrict states regulating AI from tapping a new $500 million fund to support AI infrastructure. Under a compromise announced Sunday by Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a critic of the state AI regulatory moratorium, the proposed 10-year moratorium would be cut to five years and allow states to regulate issues like protecting artists’ voices or child online safety if they do not impose an “undue or disproportionate burden” on AI. Tennessee passed a law last year dubbed the ELVIS Act to protect songwriters and performers from the use of AI to make unauthorized fake works in the image and voice of well-known artists. Texas approved legislation to bar AI use for the creation of child pornography or to encourage a person to commit physical self-harm or commit crime. It is not clear if the change will be enough to assuage concerns. On Friday, 17 Republican governors urged the Senate to drop the AI plan. “We cannot support a provision that takes away states powers to protect our citizens. Let states function as the laboratories of democracy they were intended to be and allow state leaders to protect our people,” said the governors, led by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick voiced his support for the revised measure, calling it a pragmatic compromise. “Congress should stand by the Cruz provision to keep America First in AI,” Lutnick wrote on X. Congress has failed for years to pass any meaningful AI regulations or safety measures. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said the Blackburn-Cruz amendment “does nothing to protect kids or consumers. It’s just another giveaway to tech companies.” Cantwell said Lutnick could simply opt to strip states of internet funding if they did not agree to the moratorium. By David Shepardson, Reuters
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E-Commerce
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