Tanium lays out channel plans after $100m funding win

Security vendor looking to build deeper channel ties with enterprise VARs

Security vendor Tanium is on the hunt for traditional UK channel partners after securing $100m (£79m) in funding, according to EMEA vice president Matt Ellard.

Tanium raised $100m in a recent funding round, following a period of intense media scrutiny during which it was accused of compromising a customer's cybersecurity and creating an inhospitable environment for employees.

Its platform is designed to connect all end-points within a large enterprise and provide complete network visibility and management within 15 seconds. It also provides a range of detection and incident response products that integrate into the platform.

Speaking to CRN, Ellard said that Tanium is now looking to recruit a number of UK channel partners, having previously worked with larger integrators.

"We are very much of the greatest value to organisations that have anywhere from 5,000 end-points and up," he explained.

"We have partnerships that are targeted to help [those customers] - so I would say the most meaningful today are with Accenture, PwC and Verizon - which really help with incident response and forensics - but we are also now, due to the nature of our technology, starting to develop early-stage relationships with partners that have workplace management services.

"We're also talking about traditional VARs. I don't think we can give names because we're going through contractual discussions, but overall our message is that we're investing heavily in the channel - from alliances all the way through to VARs and distribution."

Ellard explained that while he is not seeking mass channel partner adoption, the partners he is looking for range from the big guns to smaller boutique players.

He expects Tanium to increase the total business it puts through the channel to around 70 per cent, with the vendor currently seeing roughly a 50/50 split between direct business and the channel.

"It's not going to be a broad play," he said. "We're not looking at the mid-market or SMB at all, but what we're looking at is developing relationships with the right partners in the right location to invest resources in them.

"I would say you can use the word 'traditional', but it's going to be targeted in key countries and markets, and the right partners that will get the most benefit from the Tanium solution - so workplace management, end-point compute and people with heavy IT operations.

"It'll be traditional VARs and also some boutique partners, to go with the high-end enterprise VARs."

Managed services

Despite saying that Tanium is not specifically targeting the SMB and mid-market spaces, Ellard said that he has been approached by firms looking to offer Tanium's solutions to smaller customers through a managed services offering - something Tanium is open to.

"You never say never," he said. "A lot of mid-sized organisations today have a huge need to get better control and visibility of their end-points, and improve their risk postures.

"We're not saying we'll never address that. In EMEA we have over 1,800 clients that have over 10,000 end-points. We want to make sure that we're addressing them today, and we're certainly building the partner community out to do that.

"That said, there have certainly been partners interested in using Tanium to provide services in a managed services offering to organisations and that's something we're start talking about, but we don't want to dilute how effective we can be to our customers today."