5 Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending June 18 CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel.

The Week Ending June 18

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is security platform developer Forcepoint for an acquisition that will expand its security threat removal offerings.

Also making the list this week are next-generation database developer Neo4j for an impressive funding round, Hewlett Packard Enterprise for providing public sector partners with new sales incentives, DevOps platform supplier GitLab for developing new partner certifications, and Cisco Systems for debuting its new 5G router lineup.

Forcepoint To Buy Deep Secure For Its Threat Removal Know-How

Security system vendor Forcepoint is expanding its threat removal tech offerings and expertise through a deal announced this week to buy U.K.-based Deep Secure.

With the acquisition Forcepoint can expand its Cross Domain Solutions portfolio with Deep Secure’s Threat Removal Platform and the company plans to integrate Deep Secure’s defense-grade Content, Disarm and Reconstruction capabilities into the Forcepoint SASE architecture.

The Deep Secure purchase is Forcepoint’s second acquisition in less than two months: In early May the company bought Cyberinc, a developer of browser isolation technology used to minimize risk from ransomware, malware and other malicious code.

Next-Gen Database Developer Neo4j Raises $325M In Funding

Graph database developer Neo4j raised an impressive $325 million in a Series F round of financing this week that the company described as the largest investment in a private database company. The funding comes on top of the $190.1 million that San Mateo, Calif.-based Neo4j raised in previous rounds and increases the company’s pre-money valuation to more than $2 billion.

Neo4j wasn’t alone this week in reporting successful rounds of financing. Digital optimization tech developer Amplitude, coming off 50 percent growth in its fiscal 2020, raised $150 million in its own Series F funding round that boosted its valuation to $4 billion.

Industrial cybersecurity tech supplier Claroty raised $140 million in a Series D round – likely the startup’s last round before looking at an IPO. And Imply, a developer of real-time data analytics software, raised $70 million in its own Series C funding round, boosting its pre-money valuation to $700 million.

HPE Ups Public Partner Partner Incentives For dHCI, Alletra Sales

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is offering additional incentives aimed at rewarding public sector partners for selling higher value HPE storage solutions.

HPE is enlisting its public sector channel partners for a data storage services sales push, offering increased public sector partner spiffs for the company’s new Alletra NVMe product and for dHCI disaggregated hyperconverged storage solutions.

Beyond the usual Nimble and Primera incentives, public sector partners can now earn additional payouts for dHCI hyperconverged solutions and an even greater “multiplier” if they move customers to the recently announced AllNVMe Alletra 6000 and 9000 systems.

GitLab Offers Expanded Partner Certifications As Demand Surges For DevOps Expertise

DevOps platform provider GitLab is expanding its GitLab Partner Program to assist new and existing partners who develop DevOps lifecycle services around the company’s products to support customers.

The new GitLab Certified Services Partner Program is the latest extension of the GitLab Partner Program that launched in April 2020.

The GitLab Certified Services Partner Program includes Certified Professional Services Partner (PSP) and Certified Training Partner (CTP) badges for partners who deliver value-added services to customers who are new to GitLab, expanding their GitLab deployments, or optimizing their DevOps practices with GitLab.

Cisco Launches Catalyst 5G Router Portfolio Targeting IoT, Edge Applications

Cisco Systems is competing on many fronts these days, such as its recent moves to greatly expand the features and capabilities of its Webex collaboration platform as it goes head-to-head with Zoom Video Communications.

But this week Cisco was pushing the technology edge in its core networking technology portfolio when it unveiled a new line of Catalyst industrial edge routers for mobile and fixed asset connectivity and an IoT gateway series for IoT use cases.

The three new Cisco Catalyst 5G industrial routers, which complement the Cisco Catalyst IR1101 integrated services router for ruggedized IoT environments, can be used to extend an enterprise network and SD-WAN to power connected operations at the edge – rather than running edge devices in isolation.

The new routers will also connect and power new use cases in digital transformation, connected utility substations and transportation.