Cloud Security Startup Palerra Launches New Partner Program, Looks To Grow Channel Business

When Palerra landed its Series B funding earlier this year, the cloud security automation startup said it was looking to invest big in the channel. On Wednesday, the company held true to its pledge, rolling out a new partner program and plans to grow its channel business.

Palerra offers LORIC, a security platform that aims to help enterprises automate the process of threat detection, incident response, analytics and more around cloud and Software-as-a-Service offerings. The company landed $17 million in Series B funding in April, bringing its total funds raised to $25 million.

The company isn't new to working with the channel, having had a program with fixed margins in place. The new Palerra Channel Program, available to sign up for now, is a two-tiered program with a discount structure that awards additional margin for deal registration. The two tiers are base partner and premier partner, determined by how many certified trained technology and sales personnel a partner has.

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Simeio Solutions, a Marietta, Ga.-based consulting and services provider that focuses on the identity and access management market, has been a partner of Palerra's for close to a year. Darren Calman, vice president of business development, said that the new program would complement Simeio's platform- and services-based approach and allow for a better relationship with clients.

"The way the new partner program is evolving is giving us more flexibility for how we work with customers," Calman said. "[It] gives us the ability to get greater margins and take those margins and pass them on to the customer."

The new partner program is part of an aggressive push by Palerra into the channel, a go-to-market approach that the startup hopes to grow to account for more than 30 percent of its business by next year, according to Sebastian Rovira, Palerra's senior director of business development.

"As of right now, our business is mostly direct, with some channel business. I want to see that change. I want to grow our channel business," Rovira said.

The company has also structured its sales representative structure to be more channel-friendly, keeping commissions whole on any partner-led sales opportunity.

With its new program in place, Palerra will now start recruiting partners, primarily targeting managed security service providers and partners focusing on cloud applications and cloud services. The company has already rolled out a significant investment in marketing at regional events and has started reaching out to prospective partners, Rovira said. He said there is no particular limit on how many partners Palerra would like to add, but it wants to ensure that it finds the right type of partners that are able to invest in learning the product deeply.

"This is open for business on the partnering front," Rovira said.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 30, 2015