SC

Strategy Canon

Bitglass

Bitglass protected approved cloud apps on any device through an agentless proxy, while Netskope ran managed devices' traffic through its agent and proxy and turned that path into a web gateway and its own network on just over $1 billion of funding; Bitglass sold to Forcepoint in 2021 and Netskope went public in 2025.

Why Bitglass lost to Netskope

  1. 1 · 2013–18Agentless access to approved appsShipping from January 2014, a reverse proxy protected apps such as Office 365 and Box on any device with no agent.

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  2. 2 · 2018–20A web gateway built later, on the deviceSeveral inspection modes by 2018; SmartEdge put a web gateway on each endpoint in November 2019.

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    Multi-Product
  3. 3 · 2013–21About $150 million, on the public cloudFour rounds raised about $150 million and the service ran on public-cloud capacity, against Netskope's just over $1 billion and its own data centers.

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  4. 4 · 2021Sold to ForcepointCompleted October 22, 2021 at a Forrester-estimated $200 million to $300 million, with terms undisclosed.

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Versus Netskope: Netskope ran managed devices' web and cloud traffic through its agent and proxy, built a web gateway on that path, raised just over $1 billion and built its own network BI2 BGX-6 BGX-10. Bitglass protected approved apps on any device without an agent, added its web gateway later on the endpoint, raised about $150 million and sold to Forcepoint in 2021 for a Forrester-estimated $200 million to $300 million BI2 BGX-11 BGX-13 BI4.

Arena: Market Conditions Before Bitglass

IT security teams at large companies · 2014 · United States

Changing technical requirements

By 2014 large companies were moving email, documents and file sharing into cloud services such as Microsoft Office 365, Google's apps and Box, and employees opened them from personal phones and laptops as well as company machines BGX-2. The firewalls and web filters that guarded the corporate network saw little of that traffic, so business data moved beyond them BGX-2. Security teams needed one place to see and control user activity and sensitive data across many cloud services, including access from devices they did not manage BI2. Few had it: as late as 2018 fewer than one large enterprise in five used a tool built for the job BI2.

How each step happened

Step 1 of 4 · 2013–18

Agentless access to approved apps

Bitglass chose to protect the cloud apps a company had approved, on whatever device reached them. Founded in January 2013, it began shipping in January 2014 BI2. Its main mode was a reverse proxy: a sign-in to Office 365, G Suite or Box passed through Bitglass, which could monitor, encrypt or redact data in the session with nothing installed on the employee's phone or laptop BI2 BGX-2. A layer running in the browser learned most SaaS apps automatically, so Bitglass could control them in-line without custom plug-ins, and the company later announced a patent on cloud access control BI2 BI1.

The design served a buyer who could not put an agent on every device, such as a contractor's laptop or an employee's own phone. CEO Nat Kausik described it in 2017 as inline protection at access and on any device BGX-2. It also fixed Bitglass's place in the traffic. A reverse proxy sees only the apps a company routes through it, so Bitglass guarded the services IT already knew about and saw little of the rest of an employee's cloud and web use BI2.

Rivals Netskope began shipping in October 2013 with a product that found the cloud apps employees used across the network and devices, about 3,000 of them at launch, and monitored them in real time BGX-4 BI2. Its founder, Sanjay Beri, had run the access and security business at Juniper Networks BGX-3.

Step 2 of 4 · 2018–20

A web gateway built later, on the device

By 2018 Bitglass offered several inspection routes: the reverse proxy for any device, a forward proxy for managed devices, and API connections for data already stored in cloud apps BI2 BGX-14. Gartner named it a Leader in that year's CASB Magic Quadrant and credited its in-line control of most SaaS apps, but noted that clients mentioned it less often than some competitors BGX-1 BI2. Several modes let Bitglass answer different access patterns, and they put the weight on execution: which apps each mode supported and how policies behaved across them BI2.

Buyers then began asking one vendor to cover web traffic, private applications and cloud apps together. Gartner's Neil MacDonald urged consolidating the secure web gateway (SWG), zero trust network access (ZTNA), CASB and cloud firewalls under one supplier BGX-13. Bitglass's CASB was built around cloud apps rather than an employee's general web traffic, so it built its gateway from a different starting point. SmartEdge, announced in November 2019, put an SWG on each endpoint that decrypted and inspected traffic on the device, using a patent-pending method to protect the keys BGX-11. By 2020 Bitglass sold CASB, the on-device SWG and ZTNA as one platform BGX-12. A company that had won buyers by avoiding agents now needed one to cover the web.

Rivals Netskope was deployed mostly as API inspection plus a forward proxy with agents on managed devices, which ran managed devices' traffic through its agent and proxy; by 2018 it had developed an SWG on that path, and Gartner judged that its DLP engine rivaled some on-premises tools BI2. The same clients said its agents were needed for full value and that reverse-proxy control of unmanaged devices was uncommon BI2.

Multi-Product

Step 3 of 4 · 2013–21

About $150 million, on the public cloud

Bitglass funded its growth in steps: $10 million in 2013, $25 million in 2014, $45 million in January 2017 and $70 million in 2019, about $150 million across four rounds BGX-2 BGX-1 BGX-13. NEA's Scott Sandell said in 2017 that it could last as an independent company BGX-2. The service ran fully in the public cloud on what Bitglass called its Polyscale Architecture, which scaled with load, and by 2020 it reported almost 300 points of presence and 99.99% uptime five years running BGX-14 BGX-12. Its reseller network grew by more than 50% that year BGX-12.

Rented capacity let Bitglass reach many locations without owning data centers, and it left the company with no network of its own BGX-14 BGX-12. Netskope made the opposite bet. It raised $168.7 million at the end of 2018, $340 million in February 2020 and $300 million in July 2021, just over $1 billion in all, while it built a network of its own BGX-6 BGX-7 BGX-10. The market was already consolidating: Gartner counted nine of the 14 CASB startups formed since 2011 as acquired by 2018 BI2.

Rivals Netskope found in 2018 that availability and performance were its customers' top complaint, judged public cloud alone inadequate, opened its first NewEdge data center in Tokyo in February 2019 and about 20 more in 2020 BGX-10. Its enterprise customers grew 80% in 2019, to include 25% of the Fortune 100 BGX-7.

Step 4 of 4 · 2021

Sold to Forcepoint

Forcepoint announced the purchase on October 11, 2021 and completed it on October 22 BGX-13 BI3. Terms were not disclosed; Forrester estimated the price at $200 million to $300 million BGX-13 BI4. Forcepoint, backed by Francisco Partners, wanted Bitglass's CASB, SWG and ZTNA next to its data loss prevention (DLP) under a single console, and Bitglass was its third technology acquisition of 2021 BI3 BI4. Bitglass CTO Anurag Kahol described the shift the market had made: "In today's hybrid work environment, access is table stakes" BI3.

A wider supplier could sell Bitglass's cloud access controls alongside data protection its customers already ran BI4. The integration was heavy. Forcepoint had bought another CASB, Skyfence, in 2017 and folded it into its DLP product, so Forrester expected it to merge overlapping codebases, a "double integration whammy" BI4. The reverse proxy that defined Bitglass in 2014 became one component of a suite its new owner still had to assemble into one service BI4 BI3.

Rivals Netskope kept one platform with a single console, engine, client, network and gateway, and grew NewEdge to more than 120 data centers in more than 75 regions BGX-5. Its ARR rose 33% to $707 million by July 31, 2025, with 96% gross retention, and it went public that September at about $7.3 billion BGX-5 BGX-9.

Key dates

  1. 2012-10Netskope founded; work begins BGX-3 BGX-5
  2. 2013-01Bitglass founded BI2
  3. 2013-10Netskope launches, tracking about 3,000 cloud apps BGX-4 BI2
  4. 2014Bitglass raises $25 million BGX-2
  5. 2014-01Bitglass begins shipping its reverse-proxy CASB BI2
  6. 2017-01Bitglass raises $45 million; $80 million in total BGX-2
  7. 2018-10Gartner: Netskope mostly agent and forward proxy, Bitglass mostly reverse proxy BI2
  8. 2019-02Netskope opens its first NewEdge data center, in Tokyo BGX-10
  9. 2019-04Bitglass raises $70 million Series D BGX-1
  10. 2019-11Bitglass announces SmartEdge, an on-device web gateway BGX-11
  11. 2020-02Netskope raises $340 million at nearly $3 billion BGX-7
  12. 2020-10Bitglass reports almost 300 points of presence BGX-12
  13. 2021-07Netskope raises $300 million at $7.5 billion BGX-6
  14. 2021-10Forcepoint completes its Bitglass purchase; Forrester estimates $200-300 million BI3 BI4
  15. 2024-06More than $500M ARR (Netskope) More than 3,400 customers BGX-8
  16. 2024-07$531M ARR (Netskope) As of July 31 BGX-5
  17. 2025-07$707M ARR (Netskope) As of July 31, +33% year over year; 4,317 customers BGX-5
  18. 2025-09Netskope IPO at about $7.3 billion BGX-9

Sources

Oldest first.

  1. BGX-3 The Founding of Netskope. Netskope blog (Mamoon Hamid, Social+Capital) · 2013-10-03 Seed investor's first-person account
  2. BGX-4 Netskope Comes Out Of Stealth With $21M From Social+Capital And Lightspeed. TechCrunch (Ingrid Lunden) · 2013-10-03 Trade press with CEO quotes
  3. BGX-2 Cloud security startup Bitglass raises $45 million. VentureBeat · 2017-01-06 Trade press with executive and investor quotes
  4. BI2 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers. Gartner · 2018-10 Outside analysis
  5. BGX-1 Bitglass raises $70M in Series D funding to fuel continued innovation and global expansion. Help Net Security · 2019-04-10 Company announcement with CEO quote
  6. BGX-11 Bitglass SmartEdge architecture ensures high performance and no latency. Help Net Security · 2019-11 Company announcement with CEO and CTO quotes
  7. BGX-7 Netskope attracts $340 million in additional investment led by Sequoia Capital Global Equities. PSP Investments (Netskope release) · 2020-02-06 Company release with CEO quote
  8. BI1 Bitglass cloud access control patent. Bitglass · 2020-08-27 Primary disclosure
  9. BGX-14 Bitglass Named a Leader in Gartner's 2020 Magic Quadrant for CASB. Security Boulevard (Bitglass blog, Will Houcheime) · 2020-10 Company blog
  10. BGX-12 Bitglass Named a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for CASBs for Third Consecutive Year. Bitglass / Business Wire · 2020-10-30 Company release with CTO quote
  11. BGX-6 Cloud security platform Netskope boosts valuation to $7.5B following $300M raise. TechCrunch · 2021-07-09 Trade press with CEO quotes
  12. BI4 Forcepoint acquires Bitglass. Forrester · 2021-10 Outside analysis
  13. BGX-13 Forcepoint supercharges SASE with Bitglass buy. SDxCentral · 2021-10-11 Trade press with executive and analyst quotes
  14. BI3 Forcepoint completes Bitglass acquisition. Forcepoint · 2021-10-25 Primary disclosure
  15. BGX-10 NewEdge, You've Come a Long Way, Baby. Netskope blog (Jeff Brainard) · 2022-02-02 Company insider account
  16. BGX-8 Netskope $500 million in annual recurring revenue. Converge Digest (Jim Carroll) · 2024-06-03 Trade press summarizing company announcement
  17. BGX-5 Netskope, Inc. Form S-1. Netskope / SEC · 2025-08-22 Filing with CEO letter
  18. BGX-9 Netskope prices IPO at $19 per share, closes first day at $22.49. Converge Digest · 2025-09-18 Trade press