Cyren targets greater channel presence in Europe as revenue jumps 14 per cent

Security vendor is putting more of a focus on its channel and MSSP business in Europe

Cloud security vendor Cyren is focusing "very vigorously" on growing its channel business in Europe after announcing a 14 per cent revenue increase in 2016.

For the 12 months ending 31 December 2016 Cyren saw its revenue rise 14 per cent year on year to $31m, while quarterly revenue increased year-on-year for the sixth quarter in succession, up to $8.1m.

Cyren offers cloud-only security solutions for web and email security, as well as anti-malware solutions.

On an earnings call, a transcript of which can be found on Seeking Alpha, CEO Lior Samuelson said the vendor's channel business is becoming increasingly important in Europe.

Samuelson explained that Cyren has started to focus more heavily on the channel in Europe over the last few months, and picked out distributor Cloud Distribution as key to its growth.

"We have some significant strength in order to service that channel, but I think that in general, we have begun to focus very vigorously on the channel obviously in EMEA in probably the past three, four months and I think we will do so in the US, my guess toward the end of this quarter," he said.

"A lot of the focus in Europe, because of the nature of the market, is on channels and we've signed up recently some very, very important and good channel partners, including one that we like very much, and there are several, Cloud Distribution.

Distribution

Cyren partnered with Cloud Distribution in November last year, and tasked its new distributor with recruiting UK partners.

Cloud's managing director Scott Dobson said that the distributor is already gaining traction with UK partners, as it targets the partner base of secure gateway vendor Websense, which rebranded as Forcepoint last year.

"When you're releasing a new vendor into the market the first steps are to approach some close-friends-and-family partners and put the technology in front of them to ensure that the channel believes there's an opportunity in the market place, and we certainly got some positive feedback," he said.

"They have certainly built a good team - Atif [Ahmed] and Zoe [Clark] who are ex-Websense - and the Websense channel is absolutely the type and profile of partner that we're going to be interested in approaching with the Cyren cloud-only strategy.

"That's the big differentiator - Cyren is entirely based in the cloud, and we've started to build a really encouraging pipeline. I would expect by the end of this year for Cyren to be in our top three security vendors."

US focus remains direct

While the channel is taking centre stage in Europe, US counterparts can expect to wait a little longer to see similar traction as the model is proved elsewhere in the world, according to CEO Samuelson.

"In Europe, a lot of our activity is focused on channel," he said. "We're also selling direct, but most of the focus is really on channels in Europe. In the US, it's been the reverse.

"In the US, because of the nature of the market, most of the focus so far has been on selling direct and then as we prove our model, which I think we're beginning to do so - maybe have done so - then we can drag the channel along with us.

"So in the US, we have not emphasised as much the channel, but this is something we're about to do."