Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Aug. 1 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Palo Alto Networks, Acumera, Confluent, Sophos and Anaconda.

The Week Ending Aug. 1

Topping this week’s Five Companies that Came to Win list is Palo Alto Networks for its blockbuster deal to buy CyberArk for approximately $25 billion, a move that will expand Palo Alto Networks’ cybersecurity offerings into the fast-growing identity security arena.

Also making this week’s list is Acumera for its acquisition of Scale Computing—creating a new heavyweight player in the edge computing space.

Confluent wins applause for its plans to invest big money in working with partners who integrate their products and services with the company’s data streaming platform. Cybersecurity giant Sophos, meanwhile, makes the list for debuting its refreshed channel program.

And AI and application development platform leader Anaconda raised more than $150 million in a Series C funding round this week that boosts the AI and development platform provider’s market valuation to around $1.5 billion.

Palo Alto Networks To Acquire CyberArk For $25B In Identity Security Push

Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks tops this week’s Came to Win list with its announced blockbuster deal to buy identity security powerhouse CyberArk for approximately $25 billion.

The acquisition, the largest in Palo Alto Networks’ history—and one of the biggest M&A deals in the security industry to date—aims to provide a crucial missing piece for Palo Alto Networks’ expansive cybersecurity platform.

In the acquisition announcement, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora called CyberArk the “definitive leader” in the fast-growing identity security space.

"Our market entry strategy has always been to enter categories at their inflection point, and we believe that moment for identity security is now,” Arora said.

The deal is expected to close during the second half of Palo Alto Networks’ fiscal 2026, which ends July 31, 2026. It represents Palo Alto Networks' “formal entry” into the identity security category, “establishing it as a core pillar of the company’s multi-platform strategy,” the company said.

Acumera Buys Scale Computing, Targets Broadcom-VMware

Acumera is acquiring hyperconverged infrastructure system provider Scale Computing in a move that Acumera said strengthens its position as a leader in the market for scalable edge computing platforms.

The new entity will retain the Scale Computing name. The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. The deal is backed by private equity investor Oaktree Capital Management.

Acumera said the acquisition creates “the largest edge computing software company in the industry” that’s able to serve multi-site businesses with as many as 100,000 locations.

The deal combines Acumera’s AcuVigil edge application orchestration product and Acumera Reliant Platform point-of-sale integration technology with Scale Computing’s highly available edge AI and virtualization platform.

Scale Computing co-founder Jeff Ready (pictured above), who will be president and CMO of the new company, told CRN that the new entity, with its hyperconverged and edge virtualization products, will compete against Broadcom and its VMware business.

Confluent To Spur Partner Integrations, Development With $200M Investment

Confluent this week committed to investing $200 million over the next three years to expand the reach and capabilities of the company’s global partner ecosystem around its data streaming platform.

The funding boost is particularly focused on getting partners—cloud service providers, ISVs, systems integrators, technology partners and MSPs—to either embed Confluent’s data streaming technology within their own products and services to create new revenue-generating solutions or develop native integrations between partner offerings and the Confluent platform.

Some of the financial resources will go toward co-developing data streaming use cases with partners and go-to-market plans around those solutions. Confluent is also looking to expand within key geographies—such as the Middle East—with key regional partners, said Kamal Brar (pictured), senior vice president of worldwide ISV & APAC, in an exclusive interview with CRN.

The wave of artificial intelligence software development sweeping through the industry is a major driver behind Confluent’s increased channel spending. AI, including generative AI and agentic AI applications, need a steady stream of data—often in real time—to perform their tasks.

In September 2024 Confluent launched an OEM channel program to recruit MSPs, cloud service providers and ISVs to build the Confluent platform into their software and service offerings.

The newly announced $200 million investment in Confluent’s global partner system doubles down on those efforts.

Sophos Debuts Revamped Channel Program, Unleashes Secureworks SIEM Partner Opportunity

Sophos unveiled a refreshed channel program this week featuring an array of updates aimed at better rewarding partners for pursuing fast-growing cybersecurity opportunities with the vendor while introducing an array of updates to enhance flexibility, according to Sophos channel chief Chris Bell.

The new program includes expanded incentives and improved training as well as greater self-service capabilities for the company’s 25,000 partners, while also unifying the formerly separate Sophos and Secureworks programs, Bell (pictured) said in an interview with CRN.

“We want this program not only to be the easiest to do business with for our partners but also be one of the most profitable programs for any partner,” said Bell, senior vice president of global channels, alliances and corporate development.

With the launch of the new, unified channel program, existing Sophos partners can now sell Secureworks offerings for the first time.

The Secureworks acquisition opens up partner opportunities in major product categories such as security information and event management (SIEM), where Sophos has not previously had an offering, as well as expanded capabilities in segments such as identity threat detection and response (ITDR) and extended detection and response (XDR), Sophos executives have said.

Python And AI Development Star Anaconda Raises $150M In New Funding

Anaconda raised more than $150 million in a Series C funding round that boosts the AI and development platform provider’s market valuation to around $1.5 billion, the company said this week.

Anaconda, based in Austin, Texas, also disclosed that it “operates profitably” with more than $150 million in annual recurring revenue as of this month.

The funding round was led by Insight Partners with participation from Mubadala Capital.

Anaconda is a leading provider of AI and data science development platforms and tools. The company is best known for its open-source Anaconda platform for building, deploying and managing applications built using the popular Python and R programming languages.

In its funding announcement, Anaconda said the $150 million capital infusion comes at “a pivotal moment” as businesses and organizations are shifting from isolated data science projects to building compound AI applications.