Gruve.ai Achieves Coveted Global Cisco Managed XDR Partner Status: Exclusive

Following Cisco's investment in the startup in April, Gruve.ai has become the second company worldwide to achieve the designation of Global Cisco Managed XDR Partner, the startup tells CRN.

One-year-old Gruve.ai has become the second company worldwide to achieve the designation of Global Cisco Managed XDR (MXDR) Partner, the startup told CRN exclusively.

The designation positions Gruve as a top-tier managed security provider, especially at a time in which the XDR market has become saturated, Jay Kulkarni, senior vice president of strategic accounts at Gruve, told CRN.

This designation builds on the relationship that the two companies established in the spring following Gruve’s $37.5 million Series A funding round, which included investment from Cisco.

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Cisco at the time called Redwood City, Calif.-based Gruve an emerging “visionary” in helping enterprises harness outcome-based AI solutions.

Gruve supports enterprises in regulated and resource-constrained sectors such as health care, government and financial services with strategy, data readiness, infrastructure integration, model tuning and ongoing compliance management, according to the company.

Kulkarni said that Cisco is already introducing Gruve to large service provider partners to help scale XDR delivery. Gruve, for its part, will be helping Cisco build on that momentum by working with the tech giant’s engineering and go-to-market teams to “fill in the gaps” to give enterprises the secure AI infrastructure they need, he said.

“Midsize and regional partners can now rely on Gruve to deliver managed Cisco XDR, bridging expertise gaps,” Kulkarni said.

The new designation, he added, aligns with the new Cisco 360 Partner Program, which prioritizes deep specializations for channel partners.

“Gruve’s new offering, powered by Cisco XDR, will bring incremental value to our shared customers, enabling them to quickly identify and respond to the latest security threats,” said Brian Feeney, Cisco's vice president of global security partner sales, in a statement. “This collaboration with Gruve is a critical component of Cisco’s global XDR strategy, highlighting our ongoing commitment to empower global partners and accelerate channel growth.”

Cisco during its Q4 2025 earnings call earlier this month revealed record-breaking AI infrastructure orders that brought the total to over $2 billion in Fiscal Year 2025, more than double the company’s original $1 billion target it announced in Q4 2024.

Cisco Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins said the influx of orders represented “massive opportunity ahead as we lead the required architectural shift and build the critical infrastructure needed for the AI era.”

Cisco’s security segment sales rose 9 percent year over year with revenue of $1.95 billion, which was attributed in part to growth in extended detection XDR.