CRN Exclusive: Cybereason Launches First Channel Program As It Preps For Next Growth Phase

Cybereason has launched its first partner program, the company announced Tuesday, the latest in a series of significant channel investments the company is making as it preps for its next phase of growth.

Leading the new program is the company's first channel chief, Gregg Henebry, who joined the company in May as vice president of channels. Henebry joined Cybereason from Fuze, where he was vice president of worldwide channels.

The new Global Partner Program will have three tiers: authorized, gold and platinum. The tiers are broken down by revenue and certification requirements. As companies move up the tiers, they will see increasing levels of investment from Cybereason, in the form of free sales and enablement training, technical training, deal registration, MDF, and discounts.

[Related: Cybereason Exec: Ransomware Attackers Are Expert Marketers]

Cybereason is an endpoint detection and response company that was co-founded by former Unit 8200 members, Israel's equivalent to the NSA. The company's solution is a "super analyst in a box," providing full visibility by identifying the root cause, timeline, endpoints affected and tools behind an attack. It landed $25 million in funding in May.

Henebry said Cybereason is making particular investments around MDF to drive demand in the market and "kickstart" the new program. Those investments include planned regional events with partners, as well as a Range Rover raffle for qualified partner sales people and sales engineers.

John Marler, COO at Houston, Texas-based Set Solutions, said he has seen a big shift and growing maturity at Cybereason towards the channel over the past year. Those changes include the new partner program and key channel team hires, he said. "They are pushing and investing in the channel a lot," Marler said. "It helps us because it makes it a lot easier for us to line up alongside Cybereason as a partner."

Marler said that channel push is of particular importance as Cybereason looks to compete in the hotly competitive endpoint security market. He said Cybereason's technical improvements over the past year would help make the security startup one of the "key players" in the space.

The launch is the latest in a series of investments Cybereason is making as it looks to vastly grow the company, with a particular focus on investments in the channel, Chief Revenue Officer Andrew Byron said. Those investments have included new executive additions (including Henebry and Byron), as well as building out the company's sales force. Byron said the company has added "dozens" of new employees around the channel alone.

"We are leaning in right now to build out a channel," Byron said of the investments. "I think the timing is right for us right now. First-generation technologies – traditional IT security technologies – they are important, but … we have the platform to deal with [cybersecurity challenges] today and in the future. To have a robust channel and partner program is a benefit not just for us and partners, but for customers."

Henebry said the channel investments would also help Cybereason stand out in a hotly competitive market for endpoint security. He said the company sees its differentiation as its architecture and the cloud-based platform it has built. He said the channel would help Cybereason get the scale it needs for that platform.

"When we engage with customers, it becomes obvious quickly that we have developed a unique product. The challenge we have today is how do we scale that to more and more customers around the world. I think building out a value-add, robust channel will make us tremendously more competitive, for sure," Henebry said.

Henebry said Cybereason already has more than 40 partners worldwide, including in North America, EMEA and Japan. With the launch of the new program, he said Cybereason will be looking to recruit additional partners, including a mix of boutique security solution providers, regional VARs, managed service providers, system integrators, and telecom companies. He said the Cybereason solution has a variety of use cases, so it is looking to recruit a wide variety of partners.