Cybersecurity vendor 'accelerating' investment in UK channel after funding round

Illumio's investment includes a designated programme for MSPs

Cybersecurity vendor 'accelerating' investment in UK channel after funding round

Cybersecurity vendor Illumio is "investing heavily" in its UK and EMEA channel following a $225m funding round last month, its EMEA senior director of channels has said.

The California-based company offers "zero trust segmentation" services to prevent malicious threats like ransomware and cyber-attacks and claims that its SaaS platform delivers "automated enforcement within minutes".

Its latest funding round will be partly used to "accelerate" the investment in its UK and EMEA channel, with senior director of channel and alliances for EMEA Scott Walker identifying "three key areas" of channel growth.

This includes ensuring system integrators "have the right tools, support and enablement", "a specific programme dedicated to managed service providers (MSPs)" and "investing heavily" in its reseller and distribution channel to accelerate the adoption of its "micro segmentation" offering.

The company has also recently brought five new staff members into its EMEA channel organisation and has introduced a "new partner portal deal registration programme" which Walker said would "contribute to the growth and profitability" of its partners.

"I joined the business just over two years ago as our first channel hire for EMEA, so we had worked through and with channel partners beyond me joining the business for our early customers," Walker said.

"But now that we have the people, the technology and the enablement programmes there to go and execute, we have the ability and the backbone now to go and scale and invest in recruiting new partners, which is absolutely something we're in the middle of doing right now.

"EMEA contributes significantly to the company and we'll continue to grow that."

Walker said the firm operates with a "lean" channel but is looking for partners that have "identified zero trust as a as a key focus area", "strong technical expertise" and "strong executive sponsorship".

Partners can benefit from a "strong deal registration programme" along with sales support and sales enablement as part of a "flexible and agile" approach to partnerships that has been adopted at the company, according to Walker.

"I would say the market, even over the last three months, has accelerated massively because every single day we read something online or in the paper about a new attack that's used the same tactics that have always been used and are still successful," he added.

"It's not because companies aren't using great technologies, it's just because zero trust should play a huge part in their future strategy to mitigate these things."