Netskope IPO Shows Why Cybersecurity Industry Is Such A Juggernaut: Analysis - crn.com

HOME ▸ NEWS ▸ SECURITY ▸ 2025 ▸ NETSKOPE IPO SHOWS WHY CYBERSECURITY INDUSTRY IS SUCH A JUGGERNAUT: ANALYSIS Security Netskope IPO Shows Why Cybersecurity Industry Is Such A Juggernaut: Analysis BY KYLE ALSPACH SEPTEMBER 19, 2025, 10:41 AM EDT The successful IPO—along with the continuing chaos from hackers and AI—make the conclusion unavoidable that it’s a very good time to be in the cybersecurity industry. SHARE THIS While I was away from my home city of New York covering a major cybersecurity vendor’s conference in Las Vegas, another vendor was back in New York setting itself up to become the security industry’s next giant. The latter company, Netskope, completed its IPO Wednesday with a sale of shares at $19 a piece, pricing at the top end of its previously shared range. The SASE vendor raised $908 million in the offering and shares have climbed further after debuting on the Nasdaq Thursday, with Netskope’s stock price currently at $23.20 a share as of this writing Friday. [Related: Zscaler, Netskope, Palo Alto Networks Lead Gartner’s SSE Magic Quadrant For 2025] The IPO is notable for the tech industry overall since cybersecurity continues to be “one of the few technology sectors with clear structural demand,” IPOX Vice President Kat Liu told Reuters. Taken together, the Netskope IPO and the major security conference this week, CrowdStrike’s Fal.Con 2025, both point to the unavoidable conclusion that it’s a very good time to be in the cybersecurity industry. The CrowdStrike conference could fairly be described as remarkable, with 8,000 attendees packing into keynotes and palpable enthusiasm for a company that, just a little over a year earlier, had been responsible for a global IT catastrophe. The turnaround from CrowdStrike is a testament to the company’s concerted efforts, for sure. But it’s also a sign of the massive demand right now for security products that really work (which CrowdStrike has a strong track record for delivering). For Netskope, a top player in the fast-growing SASE (secure access service edge) market, the IPO is also notable given that many of its top competitors in that space are already publicly traded—including Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler and Fortinet. Clearly, with hackers and AI amplifying the cyber chaos for organizations everywhere, the market believes there is plenty of room to grow in the most critical sectors of cybersecurity. The growing realization from organizations that doing AI and agentic right requires making a big investment on security will, in all likelihood, only accelerate things further. That is, in fact, exactly what Netskope itself has been banking on. When I spoke with Netskope co-founder and CEO Sanjay Beri in March, he told me that the vendor’s big theme for 2025 is security and network modernization as a way to enable customers to take full advantage of technologies such as AI. For countless organizations, the AI push is “ripping apart” the network and security investments they’ve made in the past, he told me at the time. “Clearly, the North Star for [all] security and network folks right now is to tackle the cloud and AI world, and modernize everything—their network, their security,” Beri said. “For [Netskope], the reality is that’s what we’re built for.” KYLE ALSPACH Kyle Alspach is a Senior Editor at CRN focused on cybersecurity. His coverage spans news, analysis and deep dives on the cybersecurity industry, with a focus on fast-growing segments such as security operations, AI security and identity protection. He can be reached at kalspach@thechannelcompany.com Cloud Security Cybersecurity Network Security AI AI Agents Next-generation Firewall Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) Logicalis CEO Jon Groves On His Plans To Be ‘The Most AI-Infused Partner Out There’ New Oracle CFO Maxson Brings Energy Expertise To AI Buildout Harbor IT Bets On Deep Integration, Cybersecurity To Win Midmarket Clients The 20 Hottest AI Cybersecurity Companies: The 2026 CRN AI 100 Fortinet: ’Critical’ FortiClient EMS Vulnerability Exploited In Attacks TO TOP