Cloud Centric Cybersecurity Solutions Designed and Made in India

Tell us about AnexGate’s journey so far.

AnexGate began its journey around 2004–2005. The company was founded by Rahul Gupta.

Earlier, the security landscape was much simpler by current standards. We were dealing with basic firewalls and access controls. We had access to server hardware and used it along with third-party software to build our initial conceptual product. That’s how it all started.

As the ecosystem evolved, we began doing more work in-house. We moved from buying servers to assembling our hardware and started designing it ourselves. Over the last two decades, we went through a process of vertical integration.

There were two main reasons for this shift: first, our internal drive and ambition to do more, which third parties often couldn’t match; and second, the belief that owning the entire stack—both hardware and software—gives you the depth and control needed to build truly differentiated features and products.

As of August last year, we’ve even developed our hardware designs, which are manufactured in India. While we don’t manufacture them ourselves, we work with EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) providers who contract-manufacture these products for us. Still, the entire design is our own.

We've started with one product line, and we plan to expand this approach across the ecosystem in India.

Despite being headquartered in Bangalore, we’ve funded our growth internally and haven’t felt the need to raise external capital or bring in investors, unlike many startups in the region. That could be attributed to our backgrounds—I come from a business family, and we’ve always preferred bootstrapping over external funding.

COVID was a mixed bag for us. There was a lot of uncertainty, and business dropped as the situation evolved. But then, with the rise of remote work and the increased focus on cybersecurity, demand picked up. In some ways, the pandemic was both a challenge and an opportunity. On one hand, it gave us the quiet time needed to focus on product development without distractions—something developers often crave. On the other hand, it brought unpredictability and challenges we all had to navigate.

That said, we survived and have been doing well since. We're optimistic about the future.

What are your latest tech solutions and offerings, which you are currently dealing with? 

At AnexGate, we currently operate across three primary product lines.

The first is our Unified Security Gateway, which falls under the UTM (Unified Threat Management) category. It’s similar to what's generally known as next-generation firewalls or UTM appliances in the market. This has been our core offering for many years.

The second product line is our router platform, which we initiated around 2018. Over time, it evolved into a comprehensive SD-WAN solution.

The third is a set of software controllers—not standalone products, but solutions designed to work alongside our UTM and router devices. These controllers allow us to offer additional security and performance features while keeping costs down.

In India, customers often expect high-end security features at router-level pricing. This presented a challenge, but also an opportunity. We’ve developed proprietary protocols that shift the heavy processing from the hardware to the cloud. By "cloud," we mean any off-device deployment—this could be a customer’s data centre, our hosted instance, or even a customer-owned cloud platform like AWS.

This architecture has enabled us to deliver enterprise-grade security and visibility—across hundreds of branches—at a fraction of the traditional cost. 

Another area we’ve invested in is deep engineering and performance optimisation. We’re writing modules at the kernel level or even close to the hardware layer. While this approach is technically demanding and requires specialised expertise, it allows us to deliver the same performance on lower-cost hardware, resulting in significant cost savings for customers.

We’ve also been optimising our software stack. For example, we recently rewrote our web filtering engine—originally built in Python—in Go. We believe that refining core functionality yields a stronger long-term value for customers.

In summary, our latest focus areas include:

• Scalable UTM and SD-WAN solutions with integrated control layers

• Cost-efficient security deployments at scale

• Deep performance optimization at the kernel/hardware level

• Refactoring and rewriting components for high-efficiency
  
  

This combination of innovation and optimisation is what we’re currently delivering in the market.

What was the vision of AnexGATE to expand in cloud-centric solutions from core hardware solutions?

To be honest, our shift toward cloud-centric solutions wasn’t driven by a grand vision. It evolved organically by listening closely to our customers.

For instance, we were speaking with an NBFC that had around 1,500 branches. Deploying a basic UTM appliance— which might cost Rs.50,000 per branch—would have meant a capital expense of Rs.7.5 crore. That’s not a feasible investment for many unless mandated by compliance. Even then, customers are cautious. It’s not that they don’t want security—they do. But security is about managing risk. And when the cost of mitigation seems higher than the perceived risk, customers start looking for alternatives—or even consider avoiding digitisation altogether.

That’s where we came in. These customers told us, “You already provide us with a solid router product. We’re running dual broadband links in each branch. Even when one link fails, we get alerts and maintain uptime. What we need now is basic security—say, blocking access to non-work-related or inappropriate content.” Their needs were real, but they couldn’t afford enterprise-grade UTMs at scale.

We saw this as an opportunity. In India, there’s huge potential for innovation if you can bridge the gap between what customers need and what they can pay for. We simply took their feedback to the whiteboard, figured out what was technically possible, built a proof of concept, and offered it. If they found value and were willing to pay, we moved forward. 

That said, we also recognised some broader industry trends. For example, since around 2004, internet traffic has become increasingly encrypted. Today, over 99% of web traffic is HTTPS. Devices sitting on the network can't see much anymore—maybe just the domain name—and even that visibility is threatened by new encryption standards being proposed.

So we anticipate that security will eventually move closer to the endpoint. That’s where visibility will remain. Firewalls and network devices may no longer be sufficient to enforce policy, so endpoint-based security will become increasingly critical.

That anticipation led us to develop a roaming client. We didn’t sit in a room drawing five-year plans—we talked to 20 customers, identified the common requirements, and built solutions to match.

We have a product roadmap—easily two to three years of planned work—but our priorities often shift based on emerging needs. Cloud controllers and endpoint-based security weren’t part of a top-down strategy; they came from on-ground customer challenges.

In short, our move to the cloud was a response to practical limitations, real-world constraints, and direct customer demand and we evolved our offerings.

How is AnexGATE addressing scalability and performance, particularly through its on-premises VPN concentrators and remote access platforms?

Scalability issues typically don’t arise when you're dealing with small user numbers—say, 20 or 50 users. Those are easy to test in-house. The real challenges begin when you scale to 1,000 or 5,000 users. In many cases, companies rely on extrapolation rather than direct testing. They might assume that if a solution works for 500 users, it’ll also work for 5,000—with no rigorous validation. We decided early on that we didn’t want to take that route.

Instead, we built an internal user simulation platform that allows us to emulate thousands of concurrent users using containers. Each container simulates a unique user—complete with its own MAC and IP address—and behaves like a typical end-user: browsing websites, downloading files, keeping multiple tabs open, and even streaming videos. These containers are distributed across servers in a scalable architecture—10 servers for 5,000 users, 20 for 10,000, and so on.

This system has no commercial purpose. It’s built entirely for internal engineering use. But it ensures that when we say a product can support 5,000 users, we’ve already tested it for 8,500. That kind of proactive testing helps us avoid surprises in the field. 

Sometimes performance issues aren’t due to bad architecture—they stem from unforeseen edge cases buried deep in the stack. Our simulation platform helps uncover these "needles in the haystack" before our customers encounter them.

We also applied this rigorous approach to our AAA product line—the Wi-Fi login system. This is used in environments like airports or cafés, where users login via OTP-based mobile authentication. Here, the question isn’t just about network load; it’s about whether the 3,400th user gets the same login experience as the first 10. Even if bandwidth gets saturated, the authentication flow must remain smooth.

For this, we extended our simulation to cover user interactions—login flows, OTP validation, and portal performance. We also optimised bandwidth allocation so users may get reduced speeds without compromising on usability.

In summary, we’ve built systems, processes, and internal tools that allow us to confidently deliver scalable and high-performance solutions, especially in VPN concentrators, remote access platforms, and Wi-Fi authentication systems.

As a 'Make in India' technology provider, how do you see AnexGATE contributing to the country’s digital infrastructure and cybersecurity ecosystem?

We’re contributing to India’s digital infrastructure and cybersecurity ecosystem. Many of our peers in this industry are making similar efforts. While the government has done a commendable job promoting the Make in India initiative, we believe private enterprises should also begin to prioritise it more seriously—especially by supporting and collaborating. The more challenging use cases and innovations often emerge from within the enterprise segment.

We’ve taken a step in that direction by starting to design and manufacture our hardware. That said, India’s hardware ecosystem is still evolving. For instance, manufacturing a PC domestically remains more expensive than doing so overseas. However, this cost differential is largely a function of volume. As Indian manufacturers begin producing at scale, their prices will also begin to drop.

Despite the current cost gap, we’ve chosen to absorb some of the additional expense and continue building hardware locally. In some cases, our customers have supported this decision—even accepting a 3% cost increase for the sake of local sourcing. These decisions may seem small but can go a long way in helping domestic manufacturers scale and become more competitive over time.

We’re also actively participating in policy-level conversations—submitting feedback when the government invites industry input and engaging wherever possible.

In the cybersecurity space, collaboration is key. There have been instances where other Indian security companies have expressed interest in using our hardware. While the instinct might be to guard one’s IP, we believe that a more open mindset—where certain components can be shared for the collective good—could help the entire ecosystem move forward. We can adopt policies from China – the parts that make sense for our environment.

India should have a few companies capable of handling critical digital infrastructure, including the ability to route its own internet traffic. Full self-reliance may not be realistic in a globalised world, but having ownership, especially in networking and security, is essential.

To that end, the Make in India initiative has helped us build more than just products. It has given us a broader identity beyond a cybersecurity company.

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