Descope Unveils First Channel Program To Shake Up Identity And Access Management With Partners

The startup is aiming to accelerate the growth of its easier-to-use platform for customer identity and access management (CIAM) with the help of solution and service providers, according to Descope Co-Founder Rishi Bhargava.

Descope is launching its first formal channel program to accelerate the growth of its simplified platform for customer identity and access management (CIAM) with the help of solution and service providers, Co-Founder Rishi Bhargava told CRN.

The startup is embracing a “partner-first” approach for its next phase of expansion and expecting to surpass its current rate of 30 percent of revenue generated through partners, Bhargava said.

“We are starting to see signs where channel partners are already bringing us into larger and larger opportunities,” he said. “We absolutely believe this will drive big growth.”

Founded by a group of serial entrepreneurs in 2022, Descope has aimed to stand out in the identity and access management market with a simpler, more-flexible approach.

The startup’s platform is easier to implement and to use than those of competitors such as Okta and Ping Identity, Bhargava said, thanks in part to its low-code/no-code capabilities that provide a drag-and-drop method for managing identities and access permissions.

At solution and service provider powerhouse Trace3, which has been partnering with Descope for the past year, customers have been finding some major advantages with the Descope technology compared to competing tools, said Jason Berland, senior practice director of identity and access management at Trace3.

For instance, while customers have often encountered massive difficulties with deploying new identity systems in the past, Descope has been proving itself to be much more straightforward to use, Berland said.

“It's a solid technology, in the way they've rolled it out and the way that it's performing,” he said. “It’s really different. And it’s better.”

Berland also applauded Descope’s move to double down on partners at an early stage in the startup’s development. Trace3 has particularly benefited from strong communication with the team at Descope, which he called “a huge positive versus some of the other competitors” in the space.

Scaling Up

Descope was launched by a group of founders who were previously behind Demisto — a security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) vendor that was acquired by Palo Alto Networks for $560 million in 2019.

At Demisto and earlier companies, inordinate amounts of time and energy were spent on setting up identity and authentication mechanisms, said Slavik Markovich, co-founder and CEO at Descope, in a previous interview with CRN.

Shortly after its debut, Descope raised a $53 million seed funding round in early 2023 led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and GGV Capital.

Now, Descope is looking to scale up with the recruitment of more solution and service provider partners, who will gain a formalized process for engaging with the company as part of the new channel program, Bhargava said. Key benefits of the program include deal registration, incentives, presales support and joint marketing events.

Part of the commitment to the channel is that Descope will “proactively” ask customers who arrive as inbound prospects about whether they would prefer to transact through a partner, he noted.

All in all, “the message to partners is, we are a partner-first organization when it comes to go-to-market,” Bhargava said. “We are truly relying on our partners.”