5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Jan. 9, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Snowflake, CrowdStrike, Cyera, Fortinet, D&H Distributing and DoiT.

The Week Ending Jan. 9

Topping this week’s 5 Companies that Came to Win list is Snowflake for its bold move to acquire startup Observe and add observability capabilities to its Data Cloud platform.

Also making this week’s list is CrowdStrike for its own strategic acquisition that will add security for AI agents to its technology portfolio. And solution provider DoiT is on the list for its acquisition that expands its FinOps capabilities to the Snowflake Data Cloud.

Fortinet and D&H Distributing earn kudos for their alliance through which Fortinet looks to snag a bigger share of the SMB and midsize cybersecurity market. And data security provider Cyera was a big winner in the venture capital arena this week when it raised $400 million in a Series F round of funding.

Snowflake Confirms Observe Acquisition To Provide ‘Enterprisewide Observability’

AI and data cloud platform giant Snowflake got everyone’s attention this week when the company confirmed that it has a deal to acquire startup Observe in a move that will bring enterprisewide observability capabilities to the Snowflake platform.

The acquisition will make observability core to the Snowflake Data Cloud. With the addition of Observe’s technology, Snowflake clients will be able to collect huge volumes of telemetry data from operational IT systems and apply AI-powered analytics for troubleshooting tasks.

That will position Snowflake to expand its presence in the rapidly growing IT operations management space—a critical addition as businesses and organizations build and deploy complex AI applications and agents.

CrowdStrike To Boost Identity Security For AI Agents With SGNL Acquisition

Sticking with the topic of strategic acquisitions, cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike make a move this week in the AI security space with a $740 million deal to buy SGNL, a startup that provides identity protection capabilities that will be crucial for securing AI agents.

SGNL develops a runtime access enforcement function that connects identity providers with SaaS and hyperscale infrastructure, capabilities that provide “continuous” identity security for human users as well as non-human identities and AI identities.

The SGNL technology allows access to be “continuously granted and revoked based on real-time risk,” CrowdStrike said in its announcement.

The SGNL technology will be integrated into the Falcon Next-Gen Identity Security offering once the acquisition closes, CrowdStrike said.

The acquisition is CrowdStrike’s latest targeting its expansion of security capabilities related to AI. In August CrowdStrike announced a $290 million deal to acquire Onum, a startup that provides data pipeline management capabilities.

Cyera Adds $400M In Funding, Increases Company Valuation To $9B

Fast-growing data security provider Cyera was a big winner in the venture capital arena this week when it raised $400 million in a Series F round of funding led by funds managed by Blackstone.

The new funding round brought Cyera’s total funding since its 2021 launch to more than $1.7 billion and extended its market capitalization to $9 billion. The company previously raised $540 million in June 2025 at a valuation of $6 billion.

Cyera is a top player in the red-hot space of data security posture management (DSPM). The company has also expanded to offer data loss prevention (DLP) software while also launching products focused on protecting data related to AI usage.

Fortinet Taps D&H To Drive SMB-Midmarket Cybersecurity Sales Growth

Cybersecurity provider Fortinet and D&H Distributing struck a new partnership this week through which Fortinet looks to gain a bigger share of cybersecurity SMB and midmarket sales.

The breakthrough deal brings the entire Fortinet security product set into the D&H portfolio as the distributor continues to provide more advanced solutions, including recently adding Dell Technologies to its line card.

Fortinet, one of the dominant firewall and SD-WAN vendors in the channel, has a full line of unified Security Fabric offerings that include managed detection and response (MDR), endpoint detection and response (EDR) and secure access service edge (SASE) with its next-generation FortiSASE offering.

D&H Co-President Dan Schwab told CRN that the landmark agreement provides more cybersecurity muscle for partners as D&H moves to help more of its MSPs transform into MSSPs.

“Adding Fortinet to our solution set is going to add fuel to our cybersecurity engine,” he said. “Fortinet was the No. 1 target for us to add to our portfolio. They play from SMB to the enterprise. We believe we can really help them get deeper reach in the partner base.”

D&H is launching what it calls an “exclusive enablement program named FWD [Forward]” tailored to help partners “master and monetize” Fortinet’s advanced security technologies.

The FWD initiative includes structured training and certification paths for the Fortinet portfolio, hands-on technical workshops on FortiGate deployment, secure networking and other core technologies. D&H is also providing partners with direct access to a team of specialized solution architects for presales consultation, solution design and technical support.

DoiT Extends Its Cloud Cost Optimization Offerings To The Data Platform Realm With Select Acquisition

Solution provider standout DoiT makes this week’s Came to Win list by acquiring Select, a developer of optimization tools for the Snowflake platform, in a move to help clients gain visibility and control over their data platform spending.

The acquisition marks a bold expansion of DoiT’s financial operations automation offerings beyond cloud infrastructure into the realm of data workloads, starting with Snowflake.

DoiT will integrate Select’s technology into the company’s flagship DoiT Cloud Intelligence platform and named PerfectScale for Snowflake, extending financial operations automation into the data layer.

“Data platforms have become a financial black box for many organizations,” said DoiT CEO Vadim Solovey (pictured) in the statement. “With Select, we are applying the same automation-first approach that transformed infrastructure FinOps to data platforms. PerfectScale for Snowflake gives customers consistent visibility, governance and optimization across their entire cloud estate, not just compute.”

The Select acquisition is part of DoiT’s $250 million investment in AI-driven CloudOps and FinOps technology, expanding the solution provider’s intelligent automation service offerings into Kubernetes optimization, architecture visualization and multi-cloud security posture.