Managed SOC Firm Cyrebro Goes 100 Percent Channel With Partner Program Debut

The company, which provides managed security operations center services to SMBs, is switching to a 100-percent channel sales model with the launch of its first partner program.

Nader Soudah, global channel vice president at Cyrebro

Cyrebro, a provider of managed security operations center (SOC) services, on Thursday announced the launch of its first channel program along with a new commitment to work with partners on 100 percent of its deals from now on.

The move comes as Cyrebro, which aims to provide enterprise-level security to small and medium-sized businesses, seeks to accelerate its growth with the help of partners, following the company’s $40 million funding round last September.

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The new channel program brings benefits including double-digit margins, market development funds (MDF) and deal registration, while also affording partners the opportunity to offer their own services around the managed SOC offering from Cyrebro, said Nader Soudah, global channel vice president at Cyrebro.

The company had previously been working with channel partners on about half of the deals for its managed SOC service. But going forward, “every lead we now get actually gets passed to a partner,” Soudah said.

Cyrebro, which is based in Israel and has its North America headquarters in Nyack, N.Y., currently works with 50 partners and hopes to double that by the end of the year, he said.

One managed services provider that has already been working with Cyrebro is Kearns Technology Inc. (KTI), a 15-person MSP based in Toronto. The company has enjoyed strong customer traction by leveraging the findings gathered by Cyrebro’s SOC team as part of its managed services delivery, said KTI Founder and CTO Hector Kearns.

Cyrebro “prioritizes and sorts everything in very actionable ways,” Kearns said.

Unlike with a typical managed detection and response (MDR) offering, Cyrebro’s managed SOC service largely leaves the response part of the process up to the partner, which eliminates any potential conflict with KTI’s own managed security services, he said.

“They’re laser-focused on the information gathering and providing that info back in a very usable fashion,” Kearns said.

The fact that Cyrebro is reducing potential conflict with its partners in another way — by adopting an all-channel sales model — is also very welcome, according to Kearns. Without a doubt, “companies that have a channel-first mentality for their go-to-market are higher on our list than ones that that aren’t,” he said.

KTI, whose customers typically range in size from 50 to 500 employees, is expecting significant growth in revenue from its partnership with Cyrebro this year, Kearns said.

Cyrebro’s managed SOC can serve businesses of any size, though it’s most unique for being able to provide SMBs with the same level of monitoring capabilities as large businesses, according to Soudah. With many existing security monitoring solutions for SMBs, the service is highly automated and “there’s nobody behind a screen,” he said.

The managed SOC offering from Cyrebro, on the other hand, includes analysis from human analysts whether it’s an enterprise customer or SMB customer being served, Soudah said. Cyrebro currently employs 116 security analysts, out of its 170 employees overall, he said.

Partners working with Cyrebro have the option to resell the managed SOC service or white-label the service for customers. Cyrebro currently has more than 450 customers.

Originally founded in 2013 as Cyberhat, the company has raised $61 million in total funding to date. The recent Series C funding round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies. Nadav Arbel, the company’s co-founder and CEO, previously headed the Israel Police force’s cybersecurity division.

While Cyrebro does want its MSP partners to have the opportunity to handle the response to security issues for their customers, the company is also available to advise partners on how to respond, Soudah said.

In that way, partners “can continue to be the trusted adviser to their customer, he said.

“I think this is a very big differentiator. Other folks in this space tend to take on the customer from that partner,” Soudah said. “We keep the partner in the driver’s seat.”