Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Aug. 30, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Cribl, Check Point, Intel, Citrix and IBM.

The Week Ending Aug. 30

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is data management and observability tech developer Cribl for its very impressive nine-figure funding round.

Also making the list is Check Point Software Technologies for a strategic acquisition in the external risk management space. Intel is here for offering a round of new incentives to help partners promote and sell AI PCs while Citrix makes the list for a new distributor deal that will provide support resources for smaller partners.

And IBM showed off its technical prowess this week with the unveiling of a new processor and new accelerator chip that are expected to help make AI uses cases a reality.

Cribl Raises $319M In New Funding, Boosts Valuation To $3.5B

Cribl makes this week’s list for raising an impressive $319 million in an oversubscribed Series E funding round that boosted the company’s valuation to $3.5 billion.

The funding round, which included a combined primary and secondary transaction, brought the total secured capital raised by the developer of IT and security data management and observability software to more than $600 million.

The funding round was led by GV (Google Ventures) and marked one of that firm’s biggest-ever investments in its 15-year history, Cribl said. GIC, Capital G, IVP and CRV also participated in the funding round.

Cribl previously raised $150 million in a Series D funding round in May 22.

Cribl reported achieving $100 million annual recurring revenue in October following a 163-percent CAGR over the previous four years. The company said it is one of the fastest startups among infrastructure software companies to surpass that benchmark.

Check Point To Acquire External Risk Management Company Cyberint

Check Point Software Technologies aims to add more than 170 employees with its planned acquisition of external risk management firm Cyberint Technologies, the company said this week.

Check Point said it has reached an agreement to acquire the 14-year-old company for undisclosed terms.

Cyberint, founded in 2010, focuses on providing digital risk protection, threat intelligence and attack surface management capabilities to assist with preventing threats such as fake websites and impersonation of employees and social media accounts.

Check Point said the addition of Cyberint’s capabilities will enable the company to “turn identified risks into autonomous preventative actions.” Cyberint’s technology will be integrated with Check Point’s Infinity Platform.

Intel Expands AI PC Partner Benefits Amid Spending Cuts

Intel makes this week’s Came to Win list for its plans to give thousands of dollars in market development funds and other incentives to partners who develop compelling proofs of concept for AI PCs in a new contest.

The new incentives show that Intel remains committed to the channel despite coming at a time when the chipmaker is laying off thousands of employees and making big spending cuts, including within its partner-centric Sales and Marketing Group.

Intel unveiled the AI PC Innovation Challenge alongside a slew of expanded benefits meant to encourage members of the Intel Partner Alliance (IPA) program to sell and drive interest in AI-enabled PCs powered by its Core Ultra processors and to incentivize ISV partners to develop AI PC applications.

In addition to the contest, Intel is expanding a variety of IPA benefits for partners around AI PCs. They include special redemptions for IPA points and new points offerings, the latter of which will allow partners to earn double the points value for selling qualified systems with Core Ultra processors.

Intel is also introducing new and updated training courses for building and selling AI PCs, including systems that will use the company’s next-generation Core Ultra processors code-named “Lunar Lake.”

And the company is releasing what it calls an “AI PC Look Book” to showcase ISVs developing AI-enabled features for PCs, as well as the AI PC Activation Zone, which will act as a webpage that is dedicated to AI PC partner resources.

Citrix Inks Deal With Arrow To Provide More Resources To Smaller Partners

Staying on the topic of providing partners with what they need to be successful, Citrix, a business unit of Cloud Software Group, has established a new strategic partnership with Arrow Electronics through which the distributor will provide channel partners in North America and Europe with sales, marketing and technical support.

The goal is to make sure these CSP partners, including MSPs and ISVs, “have the level of coverage, service, technical support, so on and so forth that they need to be effective in their business and maintain flexibility in the model in which they want to consume,” Ethan Fitzsimons, vice president and head of global channels, told CRN in an interview.

Citrix’s total partner count is in the thousands. The Arrow partnership should help smaller Citrix partners increase profitability and land new customers, especially smaller and midmarket customers, Fitzsimons said.

“Those partners still have the flexibility of maintaining a resale relationship with us as well,” he said. “Depending on how the customer wants to consume, they still have both options.”

Fitzsimons said the Arrow partnership should also help partners adapt to the annual commitment model Citrix moved to this year. The CSP model historically has been month to month. So far, Citrix has moved hundreds of partners to the new model.

New IBM Chip Aims To Advance AI Adoption

AI and generative AI have generated a lot of breathless hype throughout the industry. IBM wins kudos this week for unveiling a new processor and new accelerator chip that are expected to make AI uses cases a reality for solution providers and their customers.

IBM debuted the Telum II processor and Spyre accelerator chip at the Hot Chips conference in Stanford, Calif. They are slated to be available for Z and LinuxOne systems in 2025.

The company says the chips will help users adopt traditional AI models and emerging large language models (LLMs) and use the ensemble AI method of combining multiple machine learning (ML) and deep learning AI models with encoder LLMs.

Christian Jacobi, IBM fellow and chief technology officer of systems development, told CRN in an interview that fraud detection, insurance claims processing and code modernization and optimization are some common use cases for the new chip technology and LLMs.