SentinelOne EMEA boss - 'We have trebled our team in the UK in last five months'
Roland Stritt opens up about poaching partners from Broadcom, triple-digit net new business growth during lockdown and rumours of an IPO on the horizon
SentinelOne has trebled its UK team in recent months as part of its strategy to take advantage of the rapidly transforming endpoint security market, according to its EMEA channel boss.
Roland Stritt told CRN's sister title CPI that the vendor has doubled its EMEA headcount in the last five months to 75 - trebling the team in the UK - and posted 105 per cent net new business growth over the last financial year; including during lockdown.
In February, SentinelOne's newly appointed EMEA boss Daniel Kollberg said that the vendor had its eye on expanding in France and Germany.
Seven months on, Stritt says that EMEA strategy has made good.
"Especially in Germany, and in France, we have heavily invested there in the last three months. Because we see big growth rates. We are doubling our revenue, and the most important things is that our partners are doubling the average deal size."
Looking further east, Stritt said he's considering an expansion into eastern Europe in "the mid-term".
It's true that SentinelOne's rivals have been buffeted by change in recent years.
Symantec continues to be subsumed by semiconductor giant Broadcom in a messy merger that has alienated partners across Europe, Cylance has disappeared into BlackBerry, and so too has Carbon Black following its acquisition by VMware.
Stritt tells CPI that it's this flux that has enabled SentinalOne to poach partners from larger rivals including CrowdStrike and Broadcom.
"There is a trend, especially from some stronger CrowdStrike partners, who are moving away, or at least building up a strong plan B as they see us as much more gentle, friendly and supportive with a clear channel strategy compared to others," Stritt said.
"And then we are also seeing Symantec or Broadcom partners coming over. And those partners that are still dealing with legacy AV vendors."
SentinelOne's profile was boosted at the start of the year with a flashy $1.1bn valuation, surpassing Unicorn status after a $200m funding round.
Stritt claims that much of the buzz is down to SentinelOne being placed in the right part of the security market at the right time.
"If you look to other big security and network players, many of them have acquired endpoint companies because it's clear now that endpoint is the future. Look at Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco - all of them.
"But now the perimeter is gone. And there is no doubt anymore.
"So big enterprise partners, and the strong cybersecurity partners are now starting to more into the endpoint, which is a big change for many from two years ago. Many had been focused on the network and thought, I don't want to deal with the endpoint.
"Today, there is no way out."
He added: "EDR (endpoint, detection and response) is something that every vendor or every partner needs to have in their portfolio, if they call themselves cybersecurity partners."
Stritt says this message is resonating among EMEA partners.
Average deal value for partners has increased by 80 per cent since Stritt's appointment in early March.
And despite mounting rumours of a potential IPO, Stritt says that for now, the Israeli and Silicon Valley firm is using its funding round cash on R&D to bolster its AI portfolio to identify and isolate abnormal behaviour in enterprise networks.
"We want to stay in the market as the market leader into the future," he said.
"So we are really carefully investing the money. We don't want to burn money."