VulnCheck Shifts To Channel-Focused Model For Exploit Intelligence Offering

The four-year-old company is launching its first formal partner program to drive the next phase of growth for its offering, which helps to automate cyber defense with machine-readable threat data, according to Founder and CEO Anthony Bettini.

VulnCheck launched its first formal partner program Wednesday to drive the next phase of growth for its exploit intelligence offering, which aims to enable greater automation for cyber defense, according to Founder and CEO Anthony Bettini.

Founded in 2021, VulnCheck provides exploit intelligence to security teams through delivering machine-readable threat data, in contrast to approaches focused on creating threat intelligence reports that must be read by security analysts, Bettini (pictured) told CRN.

“Organizations are inundated with threat intel data that is sent to them as human-readable content. They have more threat reports than they know what to do with,” he said. “And then, it’s frequently hard to marry up that information with vulnerability findings from tools — [such as] AppSec tools, an EDR agent or a vulnerability management product.”

VulnCheck aims to fill the gap by providing machine-readable information — typically fed into an organization’s data lake — which automatically enables improved defense against threats, Bettini said.

“It’s threat intel for machines and automation, not threat intel for people to read,” said Bettini, a repeat entrepreneur in the cybersecurity sector who previously founded FlawCheck (acquired by Tenable) and Appthority (acquired by Symantec).

Partner Perspective

Solution providers that have been working with VulnCheck so far include cybersecurity powerhouse Optiv, No. 28 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2025. VulnCheck offers major advantages in terms of accelerating and prioritizing responses to threats, according to Michael Peters, vice president for partners and alliances at Denver-based Optiv.

VulnCheck “can help clients get visibility to [threats] in a differentiated way, in a faster way, which allows them to really prioritize in a world of limited resources,” Peters said.

Another key benefit of VulnCheck is that it’s not intended to replace existing products, meaning that customers don’t have to remove existing tools to use VulnCheck, he said.

VulnCheck is “more of an additive to what you have in place,” Peters said.

The company’s move to launch its first-ever partner program, meanwhile, is a strong signal of how VulnCheck is approaching its expansion strategy, he said.

“Seeing them mature and [launch] a partner program is great, and makes it all the more simple for us to partner together and win together in the market,” Peters said.

Recruitment Push

Through debuting its formal partner program, VulnCheck is looking to scale up its work with the channel through recruiting additional solution and service provider partners, according to Bettini.

“Historically, we've basically been 100-percent direct [sales], and we're now moving to a model where we're channel-first,” he said. “We're going to do everything we can to support that partner program, like lining up market development funds, providing differentiated data and [offering] business growth opportunities.”

The new program will also include elements such as deal registration and support on proof-of-concept deployments, as well as technical and sales guidance.

Additionally, VulnCheck’s ability to integrate with a customer’s existing technology stack should prove especially appealing for many partners, Bettini said.

“A lot of organizations come in and try to do vendor swap outs, which have their own cost to an organization,” he said. “What VulnCheck does by integrating with their existing tech stack is really driving up the value of their existing spend, and it makes all of those tools better.”

Ultimately, “I think the approach is different, and I think it's particularly channel-friendly — because the channel may have sold them many of the tools that we're driving up the value of,” Bettini said.