With New Funding and CEO, SD-WAN Leader Aryaka Poised for Growth

Aryaka has been a player in SD-WAN before anyone knew they were in the SD-WAN business. We’ve been following the company for more than a decade.

They’ve come such a long way. In 2012 they called their solution WAN-optimization as-a-service. There was no industry term at that time! Check out our interview.

2012 Sonal Puri of Aryaka tells TMC’s Rich Tehrani about the company’s WAN optimization as a service

As a result of their early entrance into the market and differentiated position, Aryaka is embarking on a journey of even greater success.

In an exclusive interview with CEO Matt Carter and CMO Shashi Kiran, we learned a tremendous amount about the company’s future.

Matt was brought on about nine months ago to take the company to the next stage of growth. A graduate of Harvard Business School, he has had an amazing career already, working as brand manager at Coca-Cola for five years, Bellsouth for five years and Sprint for a total of seven years.

We asked about the contrast between leading Aryaka and Sprint and he said, “Focus is the difference, providing connectivity-as-a service; a value-add for the enterprise.” He continued, “We help customers accelerate digital transformation and provide the underlying network for this transformation.” He contrasted this to Sprint where there was a diluted focus and numerous priorities.

“When I came on, we needed the next level of leadership to improve growth,” he exclaimed, referring to his start at Aryaka.

Aryaka CEO Matt Carter

When Matt started hiring people like Shashi, he received inquiries about additional funding needs. They ended up closing a Series F of $50M from Goldman Sachs last month.

“We’re constantly evaluating the market for high-growth companies that are leaders in their space. Our research shows that Aryaka offers a compelling solution for the SD-WAN market that continues to grow exponentially including increased adoption of SD-WAN managed services,” said Matthew Dorr, vice president at Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing. “We decided to invest in Aryaka because of their highly differentiated offering, strong customer base, global footprint and their experienced management team.”

Matt explained they are seeing the need from customers to compete more effectively and increase productivity throughout the world.

“We use the backbone of the internet to create connectivity from the ground level and put on our software for consistency and quality across the globe. We enhance the end-user experience and manage it end-to-end,” he said.

Matt explained that often, companies work with numerous vendors and hope for the same user experience.

Rich Tehrani speaks with Mouli Radhakrishnan of Aryaka at ITEXPO/SD-WAN Expo 2018

He said, “We add simplicity, better-quality customer experience and accelerate customer DX efforts better than working with other vendors.

When asked what’s next, Shashi said, “We have Partnership announcements coming in summer with very differentiated positioning.” He continued, “We have numerous technology innovations coming as well.”

CMO Shashi Kiran

He explained, Aryaka is delivering end-to-end services.

“That’s where the complexity is today,” Shashi exclaimed. ” We are taking more ownership of complexity from customers… Ownership of procuring last-mile connectivity.”

This is a very smart move and great differentiator for Aryaka as they can optimize traffic on the link, ensuring end-to-end performance.

“This is resonating quite well,” he exclaimed.

He continued by explaining that many of their competitors require 90 days for service to be effectively stabilized and for the SLA to kick in.

Shashi said, “We start at day one, we are the single point of contact globally and will continue to talk about this more aggressively.”

While this is a more tactical marketing message, there was also a greater, strategic message throughout our interview.

Matt said, “We are uniquely positioned in digital transformation. The only single-source for global connectivity to customers.” He continued, “Our recent funding by blue-chip Goldman Sachs validates our position in the marketplace.”

It’s been only a few short months since we had an exclusive interview with Shashi where we wrote:

Their goal is to ensure more predictable, market-leading sustainable growth. They have over 800 global customers and a 100% managed services solution.

We can’t help but be impressed with all the progress which has been made in a short time. Massive funding, a new CISO and a big win in China.

The company is positioned very well for the future and SD-WAN is gaining traction. Digital transformation in general, as well as apps like collaboration, are huge drivers of software-defined wide area networks while security and business continuity are other benefits. In all, this is great news for companies looking for a robust, well-funded group of companies to choose from when deploying SD-WAN in their organizations.

Learn about the latest in everything you need! SD-WAN, UCaaS, the Channel, IT, IOT, Edge, Cybersecurity, AI, and the Future of Work at the world’s only SD-WAN Expo and MSP Expo, part of the ITEXPO #TechSuperShow, Feb 12-14, 2020 Fort Lauderdale, FL.


 

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