Enclave Networks

Enclave Networks is a small Newport, Wales-based startup building a zero trust network access product positioned as a straightforward VPN replacement. Founded in 2017 by Alistair Evans, the company’s pitch is that connecting staff, developers, cloud workloads, containers, and IoT devices to private resources shouldn’t require standing up VPN concentrators, punching holes in firewalls, or re-architecting network infrastructure — Enclave builds encrypted overlay networks on top of what’s already there.

The company has stayed small and lightly capitalized, raising a $1M seed round from Gula Tech Ventures (founded by former NSA general counsel Ron Gula) and Next Big Thing in 2022, for roughly $1.65M total raised. Gula Tech’s backing is a modest but meaningful signal, since that fund specializes in early-stage cybersecurity bets and has a track record of picking technically credible teams, even though the check size here is small relative to well-funded ZTNA competitors like Cloudflare, Zscaler, or Twingate.

Enclave’s target customer is explicitly MSPs and smaller IT teams that want zero trust network access without the deployment complexity of enterprise SASE platforms. That’s a real and underserved niche, but the company’s scale (single-digit funding, small team, UK-only public profile) means CISOs at larger enterprises should treat it as an early-stage alternative worth piloting rather than a proven platform with the maturity of category leaders.