5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Sept. 12, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including F5, Databricks, Snowflake, Blue Mantis and RingCentral.

The Week Ending Sept. 12

Topping this week’s 5 Companies that Came to Win list is F5 for its deal to acquire CalypsoAI in a move that will boost the AI security capabilities of the F5 application delivery platform.

Also making this week’s list is Databricks for closing a stunning $1 billion Series K funding round that puts the fast-growing data management and AI platform company’s market capitalization at more than $100 billion.

Data and AI cloud service provider Snowflake is here for a major revamp of its reseller program, while UCaaS giant RingCentral makes the list for acquiring AI-powered workforce management provider CommunityWFM in a move to boost its contact center services.

And solution provider Blue Mantis makes the list for becoming a full-scale MSSP with the launch of its Mantis Protect managed security service this week.

F5 To Acquire CalypsoAI For GenAI Security Push

F5 leads this week’s Came to Win list after striking a deal to acquire AI security vendor CalypsoAI for $180 million.

The acquisition aims to boost AI security on the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform, the company said.

CalypsoAI, founded in 2018, is a “pioneer” in the area of enterprise AI security, F5 said in a news release.

Key capabilities offered by CalypsoAI include real-time protection against threats targeting AI applications and models, such as prompt injection and jailbreaking, according to F5. Other key functionality includes guardrails for detection and prevention of leakage of sensitive data as well as policy violations, F5 said.

The deal follows acquisitions by F5 earlier this year including agentic-powered security startup Fletch in June and real-time network observability vendor MantisNet in August.

The deal, which mainly consists of cash, is expected to close by the end of this month, the close of F5’s fiscal 2025 fourth quarter.

Databricks Closes $1B Series K Funding Round, Exceeds $100B Market Cap

Databricks impressed the IT industry this week with a new 10-figure financing round. The company closed a $1 billion Series K funding round that puts the fast-growing data management and AI platform company’s market capitalization at more than $100 billion.

Databricks said it will use the new capital to accelerate its AI strategy and development. The company pointed to its Agent Bricks tools for building production AI agents and its Lakebase operational database—both introduced in June at the company’s Data + AI Summit—as examples of products where it plans to step up its development work.

The new funding also will support future AI acquisitions, “deepen AI research” and fuel its global growth, the company said.

The funding round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, MGX, Thrive Capital, and WCM Investment Management.

In Monday’s announcement Databricks also provided a glimpse at some of its financials, disclosing that it surpassed a $4 billion annual revenue run rate in its second quarter, growing 50 percent year over year, and achieved positive free cash flow over the last 12 months.

Snowflake Revamps Reseller Network Amid Channel Drive

Snowflake has launched a revamped reseller program within its partner network with the goal of making its products more profitable for solution providers. That includes providing partners with a 15 percent resale free credit discount for net-new customers and a 5 percent consumption rebate once a deal is signed and a client begins using Snowflake services.

The AI and data cloud company is providing the new incentives after hearing feedback from reseller partners looking for larger up-front discounts and incentives to drive customer consumption after a deal, Snowflake’s new channel chief, Chris Niederman (pictured above), told CRN in an interview.

“That turns into profitability for them—and top-line revenue,” said Niederman, whose official title is senior vice president of alliances and channels. “Now [partners are] motivated to not only help you beachhead and get new logos, but drive those through because there's something in it for both of us. And it has just worked out great.”

Snowflake has seen its partner ecosystem grow in recent years, going from 600 in 2022 to more than 12,000 partners worldwide.

Other investments Snowflake has made in its Snowflake Partner Network in the first half of the company’s fiscal 2026 include the SPN Learn on-demand training platform with professional services courses and certifications, plus a new tiering structure, according to the vendor.

Snowflake has also introduced a service registration incentive (SRI) to reward partners that drive successful customer engagements, a quarterly SPN Pulse webinar series and SPN Connect in-person events.

Blue Mantis Expands Into Full-Scale MSSP With Launch Of Mantis Protect Service

Solution provider Blue Mantis unveiled a major expansion of its managed security service this week with the launch of a comprehensive new offering, Mantis Protect, which will provide a massive boost to threat response and proactive security at a time of intensifying cyberattacks, Blue Mantis CISO Jay Martin (pictured above) told CRN.

Mantis Protect includes managed Security Operations Center (SOC) capabilities delivered 24x7 by a team of in-house Blue Mantis security analysts and threat hunters, as well as an array of crucial services for ongoing security monitoring and management, according to Martin.

The new managed security offering represents a “significant investment” in service capabilities and goes well beyond what Blue Mantis had offered previously by working with a third-party MDR (managed detection and response) vendor, Martin said.

The bottom line is that Blue Mantis is, for the first time, now operating as a full-scale MSSP with security analysts and threat hunters located in multiple time zones to provide 24x7 coverage.

The Portsmouth, N.H.-based company, No. 136 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2025, has made a number of hires and trained existing staff members for its newly constituted SOC team, which currently includes about 20 security analysts and threat hunters, according to Martin.

Core components of the new Mantis Protect service include real-time managed threat detection and incident response—powered by a modern SIEM (security information and event management) platform—as well as managed endpoint protection and email security. The Mantis Protect offering is then rounded out with vulnerability management and newly available capabilities for darkweb monitoring and GRC (governance, risk and compliance) as-a-service.

RingCentral Buys CommunityWFM For AI-Fueled Work Force, Contact Center Operations

Unified-Communications-as-a-Service giant RingCentral this week acquired AI-powered workforce management provider CommunityWFM in a move to strengthen its contact center chops.

The acquisition will combine contact center and workforce management into one AI platform—RingCentral’s RingCX—for the company’s partners and customers. RingCentral said that via the new addition to its portfolio, businesses will gain a complete set of tools to optimize operations and empower their employees and agents.

Richardson, Texas-based CommunityWFM was founded in 2005 and provides cloud-hosted forecasting, scheduling, adherence and workforce management for contact centers of all sizes. The company’s tools give agents control over their work schedules through AI-based scheduling and automated management of shift preferences.

Bringing the two companies’ technologies together will give end users one platform for intelligent workforce management and contact center operations, according to Belmont, Calif.-based RingCentral. The company added that AI-driven forecasting and scheduling algorithms complement RingCentral’s existing analytics and automation capabilities.