Security vendor ZoneFox appoints Distology for channel push

ZoneFox looks to continue partner recruitment as it moves to two-tier model

Edinburgh-based cybersecurity vendor ZoneFox has partnered with distributor Distology as it steps up its growth in the UK channel.

ZoneFox closed a £3.6m Series A funding round in March, with CEO and founder James Graves telling CRN that the funding would be used partly to launch the vendor into the UK channel.

Graves said at the time that ZoneFox was in discussions with a number of specialist security distributors with a view to adopting a two-tier model, and this has now been followed up with the appointment of Stockport-based security VAD Distology.

ZoneFox provides a user behavioural analytics solution designed to monitor the movements of an organisation's users by mapping their day-to-day behaviour, meaning it can recognise when a user is carrying out activity that they usually wouldn't.

ZoneFox had set out to appoint 15 partners by the end of the year and channel manager Howard Freeman revealed the figure is currently at eight.

"We've had a good amount of interest in the channel and had to be fairly selective to make sure we picked the right partners, which is never easy because you never know how one partner will turn out," he said.

"We are four months into the recruitment process and we've signed eight partners, but now we're working with Distology the definition of 'signed' has changed because they won't be signing a reseller contract with us, they will be transacting business and working with Distology."

The eight partners, Freeman explained, are all boutique security specialists, ranging from between 15 and 100 employees.

"We haven't gone for the big players because obviously we want to try and process some tangible results now, whereas if you go for the big partners it takes them a long time to get them moving," he said.

In recruiting Distology, Freeman said ZoneFox has found a distributor that can package its solution alongside its other vendors.

Distology currently distributes Osirium, Portnox and Okta.

"I didn't want a big distributor because you need to be a big vendor at a big distributor to get noticed," he said. "We wanted a distributor that could really add value in helping us develop our channel, our reseller programme and develop a market together, so it limited the field.

"We had several choices but the way we picked Distology was the product fit. If you imagine their product set was a pair of hands, they had a spare finger going where we fitted in the glove quite well.

"It was obvious that there would be some associated selling where we wouldn't be selling ZoneFox in isolation and it would be, for example, sold alongside privileged access management."

Hayley Roberts, managing director at Distology, said the addition of ZoneFox to its current portfolio creates a strong overall solution for partners.

"We've been looking for a product that has that visibility from an insider threat perspective and Zonefox fits that bill," she said. "This is a very good consultative piece that fits very nicely with other products in our range as a solution.

"ZoneFox is very complementary to the things that we're doing within security. It fits very well for our partners because they have a need for this type of tool - I think visibility is key within security.

"We're not looking for partners who are going to just tag this on as another product; it's got to be intrinsic to what they're offering to their customers. We want quality and consistency with them rather than just transactional sales."