5 Companies That Came To Win This Week Dec 9

For the week ending Dec. 1, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Drata, Nvidia, Cisco Systems, Cognizant and DTEX.

The Week Ending Dec. 9

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is security and compliance startup Drata for an impressive funding round at a time when venture capital is hard to come by.

Also making this week’s list are Nvidia and Deutsche Bank for a ground-breaking alliance to develop AI technology for the financial services industry. Cisco Systems makes the list for a big win in a patent legal case, as do Cognizant for a strategic acquisition and DTEX for stepping up its channel game with a new partner program.

Security Startup Drata Raises Additional $200M As It Eyes Channel Growth

Raising venture capital has become markedly more difficult for tech startups in recent months as economic uncertain continues and potential investors become more cautious. But security and compliance automation startup Drata was a big winner this week when it reported raising an impressive $200 million in a Series C funding round.

The round brought the San Diego-based company’s total funding to $300 million and boosted its valuation to $2 billion. The company plans to use most of the new financing to accelerate its research and development work.

But the company is also looking to substantially increase its channel sales over the next few years, up from the 15 percent of revenue currently generated through the channel, co-founder and CEO Adam Markowitz told CRN.

Drata has grown from a few hundred customers to well over 2,000 in just the last 12 months.

Nvidia And Deutsche Bank AI Alliance Targets $1 Trillion Financial Services Opportunity

Chipmaker Nvidia and global banking giant Deutsche Bank unveiled a strategic alliance this week through which the two companies will build artificial intelligence and machine learning technology for the financial services industry.

Through the multi-year collaboration agreement Nvidia and Deutsche Bank will develop a range of applications including intelligent avatars, speech AI and fraud detection based on Nvidia’s AI Enterprise software. The project is also expected to accelerate the development of a broad range of AI-powered services.

Industry consulting firm McKinsey has projected the annual global economic impact of AI in the financial services sector to grow to as much as $1 trillion per year.

Nvidia and Deutsche Bank executives said the fruits of the development work, including new AI frameworks and workflows for financial service use cases, will ultimately prove beneficial to solution and service providers in the IT channel.

Cisco Scores Legal Win After Supreme Court Refuses To Restore $2.75B Award In Patent Fight

Cisco Systems was a big winner this week when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Centripetal Networks to reinstate a $2.75 billion award against Cisco in a cybersecurity patent dispute.

The 2020 award by a lower court federal judge, the largest in U.S. patent law history, was overturned in June by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That court ruled that the federal judge in the original trial, Henry Morgan, should have recused himself when, after the trial but before issuing his ruling, he learned that his wife owned 100 shares of Cisco stock.

Cybersecurity company Centripetal Networks appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the appeal means that the case must start over in a U.S. District Court. Cisco said it looked forward to “addressing the merits” of the case in District Court.

Centripetal Networks sued Cisco in 2018 claiming that the networking giant used Centripetal’s network protection technology in its network switches and routers and in monitoring software that analyzes data from those devices.

Cognizant Looks To Boost Its SAP, Utility Industry Expertise With Utegration Acquisition

Global IT solution provider Cognizant struck a deal this week to acquire Utegration, a Houston-based solution provider specializing in SAP services and products with a focus on the energy and utilities industries.

With the acquisition, expected to close by year-end, Cognizant has the opportunity to expand its reach into the fast-growing utilities industry market for SAP.

Cognizant, No. 7 on CRN’s 202 Solution Provider 500, already works with such vendors as SAP, Workday, Salesforce and Oracle in its enterprise platform services business.

Utegration will be a big part of Cognizant’s plans to continue to quickly grow its SAP business.

Brian Stoner

DTEX Launches New Partner Program As It Eyes 2023 Mid-Market Expansion

DTEX Systems launched a new partner program this week that the insider threat intelligence company expects to leverage when it starts to expand into the mid-market in 2023.

Earlier this year, the San Jose, Calif.-based DTEX, which now primarily focuses on large enterprise customers, hired its first-ever channel chief, Brian Stoner, a 20-year channel veteran who previously worked at FireEye, McAfee and other tech firms.

Stoner’s mandate: completely revamp and build out DTEX’s channel and alliances program in anticipation of a shift in sales to medium-size organizations next year.

The new DTEX Systems Global Partner Program provides value-added resellers, referral partners, consultants, and managed security services providers (MSSPs) with special pricing, marketing resources, and sales support to increase revenue and margins through endpoint upsell opportunities, the company said.

Though the company doesn’t disclose what percentage of its revenues currently come via the channel, Stoner told CRN that “our goal is to be 100-percent channel.”