5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Oct. 29, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending Oct. 29

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Intel for launching a new generation of desktop CPUs that the company says outperforms competing processors from rival AMD.

Also making the list this week are Imperva for a key channel management hire, Cisco Systems for a savvy acquisition in Kubernetes management, HP Inc. for a big financial commitment to forest conservation and restoration, and a trio of startup companies that announced impressive funding rounds this week.

Intel Debuts ‘Groundbreaking’ 12th-Gen Core Hybrid CPUs For Desktops

Intel launched its new 12th-generation Core line of desktop CPUs this week that for the first time combine two core types in a mainstream Intel processor line to deliver major leaps in performance and efficiency.

The new flagship Intel Core i9-12900K is the first line of desktop processors to use Intel’s much-hyped Alder Lake hybrid CPU architecture. The processors combine eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores to create what the company called the “world’s best gaming processor” that can outperform rival AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 5950X processor.

Intel executives called the new chips “groundbreaking” and said their performance enhancements mark a new era for the semiconductor giant.

The new line includes 60 processors that will power more than 500 desktop PC designs, Intel said.

Imperva Hires Vectra’s Jessica Couto To Lead Its Partner Business

Imperva made a move to boost its channel management ranks this week when the company hired longtime cybersecurity channel leader Jessica Couto to drive more services and enablement for the data security vendor’s North American solution provider partners.

As vice president of North America channel sales, Couto is charged with executing Imperva’s recently adopted strategy of transacting all net new opportunities through channel partners. She reports to global channel chief Micheal McCullough, who joined Imperva from Akamai in March.

Couto spent more than two years leading Americas channels for threat detection and response tech developer Vectra. Before that she held channel management jobs at Jask, Insights and Carbonite.

Cisco To Buy Startup Replex To Improve Kubernetes Observability

Cisco Systems struck a deal this week to acquire startup Replex in a move to help cloud-native customers better predict costs and improve transparency across Kubernetes environments.

Replex is a Kubernetes governance and cost-management startup with a platform purpose-built for cloud native infrastructure.

The Replex acquisition will bolster Cisco’s Full-Stack Observability strategy, which includes the company’s AppDynamics application performance monitoring software. The deal also comes on the heels of Cisco’s just-completed acquisition of observability specialist Epsagon.

Replex’s platform gives customers an overview of their Kubernetes infrastructure, reduces costs through more efficient capacity planning, and provides deep insights into the relationship between logical application structure and infrastructure.

Devo, Dragos And Yugabyte Score Big In Venture Funding Rounds

Two cybersecurity companies and one database startup make this week’s Came to Win list for reporting very impressive rounds of funding.

Security analytics platform provider Devo raised $250 million in a Series E round that the Cambridge, Mass.-based company said pushed its valuation to $1.5 billion. Devo will use the new capital to continue to scale its platform, expand sales into Europe and Asia-Pacific, and pursue tuck-in acquisitions.

Dragos, a developer of industrial and operational technology cybersecurity, raised $200 million in a Series D round that the Hanover, Md.-based company said boosted its valuation to $1.7 billion. The round was co-led by BlackRock and Koch Disruptive Technologies.

And next-generation database developer Yugabyte announced that it raised $188 million in a Series C round. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company said the funding, which raised Yugabyte’s valuation to $1.3 billion, will be used to accelerate development of its platform, grow the company’s field and engineering teams, and expand into new markets.

HP Pledges $80 Million For ‘Holistic’ Forest Conservation And Restoration

HP Inc. is expanding its commitment to conserve and restore forests with a new $80 million pledge, which the company says will fund an initiative to account for the footprint from paper used in HP printers from other brands.

The pledge involves providing the funding to a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) forest regeneration and conservation initiative, from now through 2030. The initiative will be focused on nearly 1 million acres of forest regeneration and conservation, said Ellen Jackowski, chief impact officer and head of sustainable impact at HP.

The commitment builds on previous efforts by the consumer and commercial printer giant to ensure that all HP-branded paper is from a sustainable source or recycled. HP previously pledged $11 million to the WWF related to projects in Brazil and China.