Alkira provides Network Infrastructure-as-a-Service (NIaaS), allowing enterprises to build and scale secure, unified, and cloud-native networks across multiple cloud environments, data centers, and remote sites. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Alkira founder and CTO Atif Khan to learn more.
Atif Khan’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Khan said:
I’ve spent my career building networking platforms for enterprise scale, including Viptela through its growth and acquisition by Cisco. I started Alkira because enterprise connectivity was outgrowing the traditional ‘build and operate’ model, and we believed network infrastructure should be consumed as a cloud service with consistent policy and segmentation across every domain. With AI driving higher traffic volumes and a faster rate of change, that operating-model shift has become even more urgent.
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Khan shared:
After our experience building SD-WAN, we saw the next bottleneck clearly. Enterprise networks were becoming hyper-distributed, but the operating model stayed hardware- and appliance-centric. We founded Alkira in 2018 to deliver network infrastructure as a cloud service, so customers can build, secure, and operate global connectivity without deploying and managing the underlying networking stack themselves.
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Khan reflected:
The moments that stand out are when a customer realizes they can go from weeks or months of planning and rollout to a working, governed network in hours or days. You can hear the relief when they see fewer moving parts, fewer tickets, and faster change without giving up control. Internally, those wins are a team sport, engineering, product, and customer success working the details until the deployment is solid, the operations are clean, and the customer is genuinely confident running it day to day.
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Khan explained:
At the core is Alkira’s Network Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform, delivered through a centralized portal and a global footprint of Cloud Exchange Points (CXPs). It provides on-demand network infrastructure with consistent segmentation across the full enterprise scope, including multi-cloud, hybrid environments, branch and edge sites, and business partner connectivity (extranet-style access). The platform also includes integrated network services (for example, NAT and DNS/DHCP/IPAM) and supports security service insertion through ecosystem integrations, with centralized visibility and operations.
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Khan acknowledged:
Two pressures are accelerating at the same time: AI-driven traffic growth and a higher rate of change across environments. That combination breaks traditional ‘build and operate’ patterns because the operational burden grows faster than the network footprint. Our response has been to keep pushing a service operating model with automation, guardrails, and consistent policy, so customers can scale change without scaling complexity.
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Khan noted:
The core direction has stayed consistent: unify connectivity, security, and operations across domains through a cloud-delivered platform. What has evolved is the breadth of enterprise scope we support, the maturity of our operational tooling and integrations, and the way we design the platform to handle faster change cycles driven by distributed apps and AI workloads.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Khan cited:
— Building Alkira from the ground up as a cloud-delivered Network Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform designed for enterprise-wide connectivity, not just cloud-to-cloud.
— Strong customer adoption and expansion into broader use cases, including multi-cloud, hybrid connectivity, colocation replacement, and business partner connectivity, which validated that the market wanted a simpler operating model.
— Scaling a growing ecosystem of partners and integrations, especially across security and network services, so customers can standardize policy, insert services, and operate through one control plane as their environments expand.
— Closing a $100M Series C in May 2024 (bringing total funding to $176M), which accelerated global scale and go-to-market execution.
— Earning recognition such as the 2025 Deloitte Technology Fast 500, which reflects sustained growth and rising enterprise demand for a service-based operating model for networking.
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Khan highlighted:
A theme across customer stories is speed and operational simplification at real enterprise scale. For example, Michaels has spoken publicly about deploying connectivity across 1,400 stores in about three weeks. Another example is Koch Business Solutions describing a shift from months of effort to being able to draw the network and deploy it within hours.
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Khan assessed:
We focus on the enterprise market where networking is becoming multi-cloud, hybrid, and partner-connected, and where the operating model shift to as-a-service is now mandatory. Depending on how you size it, the broader Network-as-a-Service market is projected in the tens of billions and growing rapidly, alongside fast growth in multi-cloud networking. We view our TAM as the intersection of those markets plus the specific enterprise need for secure, governed, any-to-any connectivity across domains.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Khan affirmed:
The differentiator is the operating model. Alkira is cloud-delivered and provider-operated, so customers consume network infrastructure as a service rather than building and running a distributed stack of controllers, gateways, and point tools. That matters because it reduces day-2 operational load and helps maintain consistent segmentation and policy as scope expands across clouds, data centers, sites, users, and partners. We also emphasize integrated network services and security insertions with centralized visibility, so teams can standardize operations instead of stitching together consoles.
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Khan concluded:
We are focused on three things:
— Make enterprise connectivity more adaptable to AI-era change rates without increasing operational burden
— Continue expanding enterprise scope coverage and ecosystem integrations while keeping governance consistent
— Push further into automation and operational intelligence so NetOps teams can spend less time on repetitive work and more time on architecture and risk management
