New Axonius Channel Leader On AI Growth Push: 'We Can't Do It Without Partners'

Industry veteran Dan Schoenbaum, who has joined Axonius in a newly created executive role, tells CRN the cybersecurity asset management vendor is looking to 'lean in' on working with partners to capture massive opportunities in AI and infrastructure risk.

Axonius is looking for solution and service provider partners to play an even more pivotal role in the next phase of growth at the cybersecurity asset management vendor, which sees massive opportunities ahead in combating AI and infrastructure risk, according to newly appointed channel leader Dan Schoenbaum.

An industry veteran whose former roles included serving as president of RiskIQ, acquired by Microsoft, Schoenbaum has been hired by Axonius as senior vice president of business development, a new role at the vendor that will include overseeing its partner and alliances organization.

Axonius announced in May that it had surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and has set its sights on doubling that amount in coming years that with the help of the channel, Schoenbaum told CRN.

"For us to get to $400 million, $500 million [in ARR] and beyond, we can't do it without partners," he said. "Partners are absolutely critical to us."

Ultimately, "my role was created to get more out of the channel, to do more with the channel and build bigger, more strategic relationships," Schoenbaum said.

Most recently, Schoenbaum had served as CMO and head of technology partnerships at exposure management vendor Hive Pro. He noted that he joined Axonius in the wake of the promotion of Joe Diamond—who had previously held positions including president and interim CEO at the company—to permanent CEO in May.

“Joe is a fantastic leader. I came because of him, and it's an amazing [executive] team,” Schoenbaum said, noting that Diamond’s prior roles had included an executive position at RiskIQ.

Axonius received a valuation of $2.6 billion in connection with its $200 million extension to its Series E funding round in early 2024.

In terms of the overall opportunities ahead, “I think what's happening with AI is something I've never seen in my life. I don't think we're going to see a trend like this in the future,” Schoenbaum said. “And I feel like Axonius is right at the epicenter of all this information and intelligence we have.”

All in all, “the message to partners is, they're more important than ever to us,” he said. “We have a team to support and build relationships, and we're eager to lean in on leveraging partners to double the size of the company.”

What follows is more of CRN's interview with Schoenbaum.

What prompted your move to join Axonius?

I've been leading companies for more than 30 years. I actually started managing and building products. But I've followed in my career the lifecycle of them—building product marketing, building out partnerships, acquiring adjacent technologies through M&A and then tying it all together by leading sales with go-to-market. And ultimately, in my career, I became a CEO and a COO. But I realized, in my career, that growth is the thing that I love being in the middle of every day. Really what led me to Axonius was my experience at a company called RiskIQ, which was acquired by Microsoft. RiskIQ did something very similar to Axonius. And when I was there, I always followed and admired Axonius. The company started out small like most of them, and a lot of the companies fell by the wayside or got acquired early. I've always really admired that Axonius has grown and has now, as publicly announced, exceeded more than $200 million in revenue. And so, when I recently saw that Joe Diamond became the company's CEO, I reached out and connected with Joe, and he and I literally have been speaking for six months about finding the right role for me. What I love about this role is it brings together three things that I think are really critical to build the channel—and that's building the go-to-market plays, the technology partnerships, but then also bringing it together with the resale, the channel partner network. I think I have a very unique background in that I could pull it all together. And I understand how to build the go-to-market play and the partnership to make it successful.

Are there any channel lessons from those prior roles that are informing how you're going to go about channel at Axonius?

I think channels are too often treated as an extension of the sales team. And I think that's a naive way to view the channel. You need to put a lot into pulling the channel partners in closely, working together and really finding and building a simple play that's easy for us to execute and easy for the partner to execute. And so a lot of my go-to-market expertise, I think, will be valuable in working with partners and finding the right play—the play that doesn't enable them to do just one deal. What we do really well is we have asset intelligence—we know a lot about infrastructures. And so partners can actually use our Asset Cloud to go in, and not just close a deal—but build a relationship to go deeper and, if they have a services angle, find ancillary services, deliver more value. What we do isn't just an opportunity for them to sell, but to build and grow relationships with all of their customers. But I think that all starts with a simple go-to-market play that we can build and execute together with our partners.

What specifically do you see as the major opportunities for partners with Axonius at this point?

We have something called the Asset Cloud, and it has over 1,400 bidirectional integrations to infrastructure—any company's infrastructure. Essentially what we do is, we enable customers and partners to uncover every software [application], every hardware asset that's out there, and to understand risk, your exposure. It really gives teams something that they can act upon. And without that, you're really flying blind. Every time I've met a CISO, I like to ask, “How many assets do you manage? How big is your infrastructure?” They never know—and if they think they know, they're off by an order of magnitude. And so what we provide is illuminating, and it's critical intelligence that you need to be secure, to manage an effective IT infrastructure. With AI, this challenge isn't getting better, it's getting worse. AI is creating a lot of exciting opportunities, but it's also creating a lot of additional risk. Vulnerabilities are being detected and found much faster with AI—unfortunately, by adversaries. And so I think AI is just creating more opportunities for us. But it's also obviating the need to have this visibility 24/7. And so we don't just give that to customers. We're also going to give that to our partners to go in and really, I think, bring value-added services to their customers.

What are your major goals for the channel?

My mandate is one that is unique. I like that my role brings together the technology partnership, the channel, but also M&A. And so I'm going to be looking at that holistically. And I think a lot of these technology partnerships, where we go deeper—and we can build deeper integrations—will enable us to do things that are unique in the channel that most other companies cannot do. Or if somebody wanted to do it, it would be challenging because they don't have this broader remit like I have. And so I'd love to really focus on plays where a channel partner is working with a technology partner that we're already deeply integrated with, and enable them to combine the two [vendors]. [The goal is to provide] some strong competitive differentiation and bring something that maybe no other channel provider could bring or none of their competitors can bring. So I think it's going to enable us to do some things that are more unique, more value-add, and bring differentiation to a channel partner in what is typically a crowded market.

Are you looking to add partners or expand what Axonius is doing with partners?

We're north of $200 million [in ARR]. And for us to get to $400 million, $500 million and beyond, we can't do it without partners. Partners are absolutely critical to us. And we wouldn't be where we are today without them. I'm looking for partners that want to lean in and build the strategic relationship with us. The partners that I'm most interested in are the ones that want to create something unique, build a special play, are open and willing for us to collaborate—and provide the support and enablement that they need to go build a bigger business together. My role was created to get more out of the channel, to do more with the channel and build bigger, more strategic relationships. So channel is absolutely critical for us to continue on this growth path that we've been on the past few years.

In terms of services, would you say the Axonius platform is especially conducive to partners who can offer different types of services?

Yes. One of the opportunities with what we provide is, we bring all this data in, and it's really the impetus to go deliver value-added services. A good example is, there are a lot of providers who do mergers and acquisitions, and an IT audit is absolutely critical for a successful acquisition. And so we go out and we bring in all this information. We illuminate the IT infrastructure of a company that may be getting acquired. And it's a huge opportunity to go in and do a risk assessment, deliver value-added services, help an acquirer understand what they're acquiring, eliminate risk. That's just one small example of how you can use our technology to go build a whole business and create value-added services around our technology. I can give you 10 other examples. But without having a product like ours, you don't have the data and you don't have the intelligence to go deliver those services. We're not a services company. We don't have a goal of becoming one. But for companies that rely on delivering professional services, we are a tool and enabler and really a growth engine for them.

What else should partners know?

It's a really exciting time. I haven't ever gone to a leader and knocked on the door and said, “I want to be a part of this,” but this is a unique opportunity. Joe is a fantastic leader. I came because of him, and it's an amazing [executive] team. I think what's happening with AI is something I've never seen in my life. I don't think we're going to see a trend like this in the future. And I feel like Axonius is right at the epicenter of all this information and intelligence we have. The message to partners is, they're more important than ever to us. We have a team to support and build relationships, and we're eager to lean in on leveraging partners to double the size of the company.