2025 marked a defining chapter for Sitehop.

Over the past year, we moved decisively from promise to proof, strengthening our technology, validating it at scale, and earning recognition from customers, partners, investors, and industry bodies alike. As the cybersecurity landscape accelerates towards a post-quantum future, 2025 was the year Sitehop helped turn readiness into reality.

From Innovation to Real-World Deployment

At the heart of everything we do is a simple challenge: how to secure modern networks without compromising performance, power efficiency, or operational simplicity.

In 2025, that challenge translated into real-world traction. Our SAFE Series hardware encryption platform progressed from advanced trials into active deployment with a Tier-One telecom operator across multiple countries. These deployments demonstrated that quantum-resilient, line-rate encryption can operate at carrier scale, without the latency and power penalties traditionally associated with software-based approaches. (For background, see our overview of the platform in SAFE Series: hardware-first network encryption.)

A major milestone came through our collaboration with BT.

Sitehop became the first external company invited to access BT’s Gemini test facility, enabling us to validate our technology in an environment typically reserved for internal development. The outcome was clear: carrier-grade performance, trusted interoperability, and Safe to Connect recognition, a significant step in proving Sitehop’s readiness for live telecom networks.

Strengthening Trust Through Standards and Certification

As networks become more critical, trust matters as much as innovation.

During 2025, Sitehop achieved Cyber Essential +, reinforcing our commitment to recognised security standards and supporting engagement with public sector and critical national infrastructure organisations.

We also showcased our technology at CyberUK 2025, the UK government’s flagship cybersecurity event, engaging directly with policymakers, operators, and security leaders on the realities of post-quantum threats and the need for deployable, network-level solutions.

People-led Growth

We’ve always believed that people are our business. Critical to not only our innovation and technology development, but our overall path to growth and success. In 2025, we doubled our headcount, investing in all teams across the business – from operations, HR and engineering to marketing and sales. It’s a trend we intend to continue in 2026.

Recognition on a National Stage

The momentum of the year was reflected in national recognition. Sitehop was named a regional “Breakthrough” winner at The Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Awards 2025, recognising our work in advancing quantum-resistant encryption and our contribution to the UK’s deep-tech ecosystem. (Read the external coverage from Growth Yorkshire.)

Awards matter because they provide independent validation, not just of our technology, but of the real-world problem we are solving and the approach we have taken to solve it.

A Major Step Forward in Funding and Growth

In October, we announced a £7.5 million funding round led by Northern Gritstone, with continued support from Amadeus Capital Partners, Manta Ray Ventures, Mercia Ventures, and NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance.

You can read the full announcement in Sitehop raises £7.5m to future-proof networks against quantum-powered cyber threats.
This investment brought our total funding to approximately £13.5 million and provides the platform to accelerate product development, expand international reach, and scale our team. Investor confidence was grounded in tangible progress, customer deployments, technical validation, and a clear roadmap for growth.

Advancing the Conversation on Post-Quantum Security

Throughout the year, we continued to share insights through our blog and industry events, covering topics such as:

• The realities of post-quantum cryptography and migration timelines
• Reducing attack surfaces through network-level security
• Secure architectures for 5G, AI-driven networks, and critical infrastructure

Our focus remains practical: helping network operators, enterprises, and governments understand not just why quantum-safe security matters, but how it can be deployed today without disruption.

Looking Ahead

2025 was a year of momentum, but it was also a foundation.

With proven deployments, strong partnerships, national recognition, and fresh investment, Sitehop enters the next phase of growth focused on one goal: future-proofing global networks against the security challenges of tomorrow.

Quantum threats are no longer theoretical. Neither is the solution. We’re just getting started.

 

To find out more, email info@sitehop.com

Or call us: +44 (0)114 478 2366

Sitehop.

Engineered for speed. Built for the future.

Modern networks face a variety of performance challenges – from unpredictable internet routing and variable WAN link quality, to the overhead of encryption and inefficient legacy protocols. Technical leaders often must deploy multiple solutions to tackle these issues and ensure fast, reliable connectivity.

Below, we explore some of the best technologies addressing network performance problems, why they excel, and what unique aspects each brings to the table.

We’ll look at how Sitehop, Cloudflare, Cisco SD-WAN, Riverbed, and Aryaka each target a different performance pain point, and how together they can comprehensively improve network throughput and user experience.

Why network performance issues persist in modern networks

Even as bandwidth grows and 5G promises ultra-low latency, performance problems haven’t gone away – they’ve simply shifted. Modern networks face bottlenecks at multiple layers:

• Encryption overhead: CPU-bound IPsec gateways add significant latency, a problem amplified by post-quantum cryptography.
• Middle-mile congestion: The public Internet can route traffic inefficiently, causing jitter and packet loss between regions.
• Underlay variability: Broadband and 5G last-mile links fluctuate in quality, disrupting application performance.
• Legacy protocols: Many enterprise applications are still “chatty,” requiring excessive round-trips that collapse under WAN latency.
• Global scale: Cross-continental connectivity is inherently unpredictable without private or managed backbones.

These factors combine to make network performance a multi-dimensional challenge — one that no single technology fixes alone. Instead, it requires a layered approach where encryption offload, smart routing, SD-WAN, WAN optimisation, and private cores each address a different part of the problem.

How we compared the top solutions

Not all “performance fixes” are equal. To cut through vendor claims, we assessed each technology against objective criteria that matter in telecom environments:

• Latency and throughput – how fast packets move once encryption or optimisation is applied, especially at rates of up to 100Gbps
• Scalability – tunnel density, concurrent sessions, and ability to sustain performance under load.
• Standards support – compliance with RFCs 8784, 9242, and 9370, ensuring interoperability in PQC, and hybrid, key exchanges.
• Crypto-agility – the ability to adopt new PQC algorithms without forklift upgrades.
• Integration – how seamlessly the solution fits into existing routing, firewalls, and orchestration.
• QKD readiness – whether platforms can leverage quantum key distribution for long-lived secrets.

By comparing solutions against these benchmarks, we can see which vendors are truly future-proofing performance — and which ones risk trading speed for security or vice versa.

The Best Network Performance Solutions

Sitehop SAFEcore™ (Crypto Offload + PQC)

Encryption can quickly become a performance bottleneck in high-speed networks. SAFEcore™ solves this by offloading encryption into FPGA-based hardware, maintaining full throughput even with post-quantum cryptography enabled. Its crypto-agile design supports future PQC standards without hardware changes, making it a secure, long-term performance solution.

Solves: Encryption overhead

Key strengths:

• Deterministic PQC aggregation
• Crypto-agile updates
• Future-proof hardware

 

Cloudflare Anycast + Argo

Public internet routing often causes latency and packet loss between regions. Cloudflare’s Anycast and Argo services route traffic over a private backbone with 330+ global PoPs, automatically selecting the fastest paths. This approach improves reliability and typically reduces latency by around 30% compared to standard BGP routing.

Solves: Internet middle-mile unpredictability

Key strengths:

• Global backbone with 330+ PoPs
• 30% latency improvement vs. BGP routing

 

Cisco SD-WAN

Enterprises rely on many types of connections that vary in quality. Cisco SD-WAN continuously measures link performance and steers traffic to maintain application reliability. Built-in WAN optimisation improves throughput, creating a self-adjusting network that keeps branch and cloud applications running smoothly.

Solves: Underlay variability

Key strengths:

• App-aware routing
• Dynamic link steering
• Integrated WAN optimisation (TCP/DRE)

 

Riverbed Steelhead

Legacy applications often perform poorly over long-distance or high-latency links. Riverbed Steelhead accelerates data transfers by compressing and deduplicating traffic while reducing unnecessary round-trips. The result is faster, more efficient communication for applications that depend on frequent data exchanges.

Solves: Inefficient legacy/chatty protocols

Key strengths:

• Byte-level dedupe (60–95% WAN byte reduction)
• Protocol acceleration
• TCP streamlining

 

Aryaka SmartConnect<

Enterprises with global sites need consistent performance across continents. Aryaka SmartConnect provides a managed private backbone with over 40 PoPs and guaranteed SLAs. It delivers sub-30ms latency to most users worldwide, combining SD-WAN control with predictable, low-latency connectivity.

Solves: Unpredictable long-distance performance

Key strengths:

• SLA-backed private backbone (40+ PoPs)
• Sub-30 ms latency to 95% of users

 

Choosing the right solution for your network

No one technology solves all network performance problems. We’d recommend:

• Offload deterministic encryption to Sitehop SAFEcore
• Use SD-WAN for branch/underlay resilience
• Use Anycast routing (Cloudflare) for middle-mile acceleration
• Use WAN optimisation (Riverbed) for legacy protocols
• Use Private WAN cores (Aryaka/Nokia) for deterministic regional/global SLAs

 

 

Conclusion & next steps

Modern networks don’t fail for one reason; they slow down because of many small bottlenecks stacked together: unpredictable internet routing, unstable last-mile links, chatty legacy protocols, and long-haul latency. Each technology we’ve reviewed tackles a different piece of that puzzle.

What is often overlooked is that encryption itself has become one of the biggest performance challenges.

With the shift to post-quantum cryptography, traditional CPU-based VPNs and gateways will only add more delay and consume more resources. This is why Sitehop SAFEcore™ stands apart: it eliminates the crypto bottleneck with sub-microsecond IPsec and PQC-ready encryption, ensuring security upgrades don’t come at the cost of performance.

Next steps for technical leaders:

1. Identify bottlenecks – inventory where your performance problems stem from: encryption, underlay, middle-mile, legacy protocols, or global scale.
2. Prioritise encryption offload – ensure PQC adoption won’t slow down 5G backhaul or interconnects.
3. Combine complementary solutions – use SD-WAN, Anycast routing, WAN optimisation, and private backbones where they add the most value.
4. Plan for PQC migration – adopt hybrid approaches (RFC 8784/9242/9370), and evaluate QKD on long-lived, critical links.

FAQs

What are the main causes of persistent network performance issues in modern environments?

Performance issues usually stem from multiple layers of the network. Common causes include encryption overhead on CPUs, inefficient public internet routing, unstable underlay connections, and legacy application protocols. Even with higher bandwidth, these factors create bottlenecks that slow traffic and degrade user experience.

How does encryption overhead affect network speed and responsiveness?

Traditional CPU-based encryption gateways add latency as data volumes grow, particularly at 10–100Gbps speeds. Each packet must be processed, encrypted, and reassembled, which consumes valuable compute cycles. Hardware offload solutions like Sitehop SAFEcore™ eliminate this delay by performing encryption at line rate.

Why doesn’t higher bandwidth alone guarantee better application performance?

More bandwidth does not fix latency, packet loss, or inefficient routing. Applications that require frequent data exchanges still suffer delays if the network path is unstable or protocols are chatty. Optimisation and routing intelligence are needed alongside bandwidth to achieve real performance gains.

How do SD-WAN and smart routing technologies help mitigate performance variability?

SD-WAN continuously measures link health and routes traffic over the best available path. Smart routing platforms, such as Cloudflare Argo, take this further by using global private backbones to avoid congestion and improve consistency. Together, they reduce jitter and packet loss across diverse connections.

When should WAN optimisation be considered over other performance solutions?

WAN optimisation is most effective when legacy or chatty protocols slow applications across high-latency links. Technologies like Riverbed Steelhead reduce redundant data transfers and compress traffic, improving throughput. It complements SD-WAN and backbone acceleration rather than replacing them.

How can organisations prepare for post-quantum cryptography (PQC) while maintaining performance?

Preparing for PQC involves ensuring gateways and VPNs can handle larger key exchanges without impacting speed. Crypto-agile hardware, such as Sitehop SAFEcore™, supports PQC algorithms natively, allowing secure upgrades without performance loss. Early testing of hybrid key exchange standards like RFC 9370 helps future-proof networks.

Can multiple performance solutions be combined to address different bottlenecks?

Yes. Modern performance strategies use a layered approach: encryption offload for security efficiency, SD-WAN for link resilience, WAN optimisation for legacy protocols, and private backbones for predictable latency. Each technology addresses a specific issue, and together they create a more consistent user experience.

What role will quantum-safe technologies (like PQC and QKD) play in future network performance strategies?

Quantum-safe cryptography will become essential as quantum computing advances. PQC ensures data remains secure against future threats, while QKD can distribute encryption keys with near-perfect secrecy. Vendors already integrating these technologies are helping operators maintain both performance and long-term security.

 

The Fortinet Cybersecurity Summit 2025 (FCS2025) was more than just a showcase of cutting-edge solutions. It was a powerful reminder that in a world of constant change, it is the right technology that makes the difference.

 

Hosted at the Transamerica Expo Centre in São Paulo, the event brought together industry leaders, partners, and innovators to shape the future of secure digital transformation. Sitehop was honoured to be invited by NCT, our trusted local business partner in Brazil, to join and present our solutions during this important gathering.

 

The Big Themes

 

Cybersecurity must adapt as fast as threats do

The summit highlighted how AI-driven defence and adaptive infrastructure are becoming non-negotiable. Organisations that thrive will be those that choose technologies designed for resilience and rapid response.

 

Performance and security aren’t trade-offs anymore

For too long, businesses believed that stronger security meant sacrificing speed or efficiency. Conversations at FCS2025 challenged that idea, demonstrating how the next wave of solutions can deliver both, seamlessly.

 

Trust is built into the technology we choose

Beyond tools and frameworks, the event emphasised trust: trust in systems, in vendors, and in the partnerships that power them. The message was clear: organisations must align with technologies that earn and sustain that trust.

 

Never trust, always verify

Another recurring theme at FCS2025 was the rise of the Zero Trust security model,  which requires every access request, whether internal or external – to be continuously authenticated and monitored. By removing implicit trust, organisations can reduce the risk of insider threats and lateral attacks, while also staying resilient in an age of remote work, cloud adoption, and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

 

The Technology That Matters: What to Explore Next

FCS2025 wasn’t just about today’s challenges. It was about sparking reflection on tomorrow’s priorities. As you consider your own roadmap, here are some of the technology dimensions that matter most:

 

Hardware acceleration for real-world performance

The ability to handle encrypted traffic at scale, without bottlenecks, is now business-critical. Exploring hardware-accelerated solutions can unlock both efficiency and security at levels that traditional software approaches simply cannot match.

 

Energy-conscious innovation

With sustainability now at the core of enterprise strategy, the way your security and networking infrastructure consumes energy is no longer a side note. Low-power, high-efficiency technology is shaping a new standard, delivering performance that is also environmentally responsible.

 

Simplicity in a complex world

As infrastructures grow, simplicity becomes a strategic advantage. Solutions that integrate smoothly, reduce overhead, and streamline deployment free your teams to focus on what matters: enabling growth, not firefighting.

 

Looking Forward

The conversations at FCS2025 made it clear: the future belongs to organisations that adopt The Technology That Matters. That means performance without compromise, security that scales, efficiency that is sustainable, and simplicity that empowers.

 

As cybersecurity continues to evolve, the challenge isn’t just to keep pace. It is to choose the technologies that set you ahead.

 

And perhaps most importantly, it is about being willing to think differently. Today’s challenges demand a fresh lens: exploring new vendors, re-imagining how technologies combine, and building stacks that are fit for an era defined by high-speed data in motion, ultra-low latency, and uncompromising encryption. Looking ahead, the looming risks of quantum computing remind us that tomorrow’s threats will require not just stronger defences, but smarter, more adaptive approaches. The organisations that start rethinking now will be the ones ready for whatever comes next.

 

To find out more, email info@sitehop.com

Or call us on: +44 (0)114 478 2366

 

Sitehop.

Engineered for speed. Built for the future.