Nile is a company that delivers network independence through a system so disruptively simple – designed to care for itself, reject threats, unleash productivity, and instill peace of mind. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Nile co-founder and CEO Pankaj Patel to learn more.
Pankaj Patel’s Background
Before founding Nile, Patel spent over a decade at Cisco, leading the development of various networking technologies until he became EVP and Chief Development Officer. And Patel said:
“I’ve been an engineer for my whole career, working with some of the largest enterprises, government organizations, and service providers. After decades in the industry, I founded Nile in 2018 along with John Chambers, chief product officer Suresh Katukam, and chief development officer Si Hosakote to fix the complexities of enterprise networking and bring modern principles to connectivity, leveraging the best of cloud-based capabilities, AI and automation.
Formation Of Nile
How did the idea for the company come together? Patel shared:
“The world and technology have evolved, but networking hasn’t. There is just too much complexity in networks today. That complexity has been engineered into enterprise networks over a period of decades. And it’s happened because the leading incumbents have been doing what they thought was the right thing for far too long, they kept adding in complexity to create new functionality.”
“Nile emerged from a once-in-a-decade opportunity to create something that can resolve the complexity of networking and deliver simple access to a very reliable, extremely high-performance network, and disrupt the industry as we know it. Nile cuts through the complexity to give customers what they really want: simplicity – ease of use, recover valuable FTE resources, simple to install, secure.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Patel reflected:
“Nile started in my living room. In those early days, before we formally created the company, Suresh and I focused mainly on vision and strategy. But when it came time to name the company, we couldn’t agree. We had a lively debate, throwing out words we thought would work, even considering Latin and Greek names for ‘Cloud.’”
“At one point, Suresh said we shouldn’t be too ‘on the nose’. Since he worked at Amazon, he said we should look at how Jeff Bezos named the company after the largest river in the world. So we named our after the longest river in the world. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the Nile River twice, and it’s staggering to see the civilizations it created. We wanted to bring that idea to our company: needing to be more ambitious and aim higher than Amazon.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Patel faced in building the company? Patel acknowledged:
“There is a very large community of network engineers and architects who have long held the responsibility of building, managing, and maintaining these complex networks for decades. Our challenge is no different than that of AWS and the many other cloud providers who have had to work to change a mindset that’s deeply seeded.”
“That takes careful consideration of the concerns those professionals will naturally have in this transition to a world where they may feel they’re losing control of something. We believe inevitably those individuals will embrace the change as they learn of Nile’s benefits towards greater visibility, control, and the inevitable positive experience they can deliver to their employees, guests, students, faculty, etc.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Patel explained:
“Nile delivers a next-generation wired and wireless LAN as a service that was built from the ground up to deliver unprecedented levels of automation and security. Because we had the opportunity to approach connectivity with a clean sheet, we were able to take a fresh-eyed look at all the complexity and security deficiencies that had mounted over decades. As a result, we have a solution that completely eliminates those complexities that often lead to network downtime.”
“What couldn’t be eliminated was improved through ruthless automation and amounts to complete hands-off lifecycle management. We built a network of physical and virtual sensors throughout the service that continuously monitors performance and availability 24/7, and linked those sensors to the Nile Cloud where an extensive library of AI automations are ready to auto-tune the environment to maintain optimal performance. And when necessary, self-heal. Our clean sheet approach also allowed us to integrate security throughout the architecture, defined against the principles of zero trust, to enable a more secure out-of-the-box experience that significantly reduces the risk of cyber attacks.”
“It’s these innovations that allowed us to offer the only fully guaranteed connectivity experience where our customers gain from Nile’s commitment to maintaining the highest levels of availability, coverage, and capacity.”
Evolution Of Nile’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Patel noted:
“We spent years refining Nile’s technology before coming out of stealth mode nearly one year ago when we launched our initial offering that:
1.) Shifts the dynamic of the network from security worry to security “force multiplier” with the first Zero Trust Network that requires no network operations;
2.) Delivers a holistic, flexible consumption model that allows organizations to pay either through a simple pay-as-you-use structure that aligns simply to users on the network or by square footage;
3.) Uniquely guarantees network performance levels based on outcomes that matter – availability, capacity, and coverage;
4.) Removes operational overhead and reduces risk by delivering complete lifecycle management without the management, with a “self-driven” network customer experience backed by extensive use of monitoring, analytics, and AI/ML-driven automation.
Over the course of the last year, we’ve expanded on that initial offering with built-in security measures that protect users and divides against advanced cyber threats. Specifically, Zero Trust Access, Zero Trust Isolation, and Zero Trust Network became integrated into our tech, creating a unique system of authentication that protects devices against advanced security threats.
Strategic partnerships with companies like Palo Alto Networks have allowed us to deliver integrated solutions that combine Nile’s technology with powerful next-gen technology. Our partnership with solutions by stc allowed us to expand beyond to the US and Canada to provide innovative NaaS solutions to customers in Saudi Arabia. The best is yet to come.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Patel cited:
“We’ve been excited with the caliber of our partnerships this far. As a global leader in cybersecurity, Palo Alto Networks enables us to build a solution that brings together our NaaS for enterprise campuses and their Next-Generation Firewalls to protect against cyberattacks. Our partnership with solutions by stc allows us to bring Nile to customers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, and Egypt.”
“Our work with the Standford computer science IT department has also been a highlight for us. The University of Denver was one of our first opportunities to work with an academic campus.”
“Our recent Series C funding announcement has also been a great point of pride for us. We raised $175 million despite the downturn in VC funding this year and doubled our valuation.”
Customer Success Stories
Upon asking Patel about customer success stories, he cited:
“Standford’s computer science department is hallowed ground for networks – being the birthplace of the first local area network (LAN), and now nearly 40-years later, they are once again at the forefront of networking innovation.”
“As a result of challenges with unreliable Wi-Fi, which interrupted classes, Zoom meetings, and everyday work for our computer science department, Stanford’s computer science department turned to Nile to upgrade its network. Nile’s Campus Network as a Service (NaaS) empowers Stanford’s computer science department to focus on helping students, staff, and researchers succeed rather than be bogged down by persistent Wi-Fi issues.”
“With Nile’s radically simplified network, security, and automation, Stanford’s computer science IT team is back to helping drive department innovations and saving the equivalent of a full-time staff member’s salary (roughly $100,000). The ROI speaks for itself. Nile’s services have allowed Stanford’s computer science IT team to automate a significant portion of tasks, simplify their security attribution strategy and reduce reputational risk resulting from network downtime.”
Funding
After asking Patel about funding, he revealed:
“This latest round brings our total funding to $300 million and doubled our valuation.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Patel assessed that it is $100 billion.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Patel affirmed:
“This is a market ripe for disruption because the traditional players have lost track of where they are, slowly evolving their products, adding immense complexity, and they kept doing the same thing for far too long. Customers are just not going to pay for the prior model: they want simple, easy-to-use connectivity and the edge and in the cloud.”
“In response to the demand for simplicity and reduced costs, we developed an entirely new enterprise network solution designed to deliver a more reliable, high-performance wired and wireless service through the extensive use of monitoring, analytics, and AI automation. Built with a steadfast commitment to security, Nile’s service incorporates Campus Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) principles by design, and automates network access control (NAC) mechanisms that traditionally required significant manual effort to provision and maintain. Nile is delivering extreme simplicity, offering customers a network designed from the ground up with built-in zero-trust security, complete lifecycle management, and a true as-a-service consumption model.”
“The larger competitors include Cisco (including Cisco Meraki), Juniper (Mist) Networks, and HPE Aruba. Of the $25 billion in hardware spent each year in wired and wireless access technology, we estimate another $75 billion is spent in operations. This simply isn’t sustainable, yet the entrenched incumbents have not responded, with business models, ecosystems, and an installed base to protect and they’d have to completely re-engineer their own existing platforms. Few have the guts to take that path despite all signs pointing to the need for significant change.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Patel pointed out:
“Right now, and in the foreseeable future, our focus will be about scaling operational capabilities to match the demand we’re now seeing globally. Nile is now being deployed campus-wide across major universities within large enterprises. We are committed to their success, not just in words, but financially backed through strict SLAs. We therefore must continue to scale as an organization so we can meet and exceed those expectations.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics to discuss? Patel concluded:
“We have more exciting announcements with customers and partners coming down the pike. This is only the beginning for Nile.”
