CLRCRMCK
Lacework looks for channel support in EMEA expansion
Cloud security player is looking to build a partner network as it expands on this side of the Atlantic
Security player Lacework has embarked on an ambitious EMEA expansion strategy with an HQ in Dublin and regional offices in the UK, France and Germany.
The US firm, which specialises in cloud security has been around since 2015, and back in January gained $525m in funding from Sutter Hill Ventures and a number of other backers.
As well as cutting the ribbon on an Irish HQ, officers in the UK and elsewhere, the firm is also opening an AWS datacentre in Frankfurt and has hired a number of senior staff to deliver results in the region.
The business recently welcomed Ryan Sheldrake as EMEA Field chief technology officer (CTO), and has also added other experience at a senior level, with Mike Staiger as chief financial officer and the former Pure Storage president David Hatfield as CEO.
Lacework has made it clear that it is looking for channel support as it targets EMEA growth and is looking to expand its partner base. It revealed it was kicking things off with a partnership with London-based MBA IT.
“MBA is a trusted advisor to many forward-thinking organisations who are heavily investing in the cloud, and we felt Lacework’s disruptive approach provides a great long-term solution to our clients in securing their organisation’s critical workloads and providing unrivalled visibility,” said Guy Brandon, CEO and founder of MBA IT.
He added that Lacework was able to protect workloads in containers as well as cloud infrastructure that could provide “ROI regardless of AWS, GCP or Azure”.
Products in demand
Lacework is expecting its products will be in demand across EMEA, and quoted IDC forecasts that pointed to $218bn being spent on infrastructure as a service and platform as a service by 2023, with cloud security estimated at more than $12bn. The firm also highlighted the skills gap in the security market as an opportunity it and its partners could deal with.
“Lacework is a special company in a very exciting stage of growth and product development, and we are delighted to now expand our reach and operations into EMEA,” said Sheldrake.
“Digital businesses should not have to choose between innovation, speed and security. With Lacework, organisations no longer need to make these trade-offs. Our team has worked incredibly hard to develop a truly sophisticated platform with consumer-level ease of use that automates cloud security at scale, and it’s now time to kickstart a secure cloud revolution,” he added.
The UK continues to be seen as a key growth market for overseas security companies, with Dutch secure comms player Zivver making a raft of C level appointments last week to bolster its UK operation.
The firm added more depth to its UK operation, which acts as an international growth hub, with the appointments of Adam Low as CTO; Adnan Erriade as chief revenue officer; and Robert Fleming as chief marketing officer (CMO).
“We’ve been extraordinarily successful in our home markets of the Netherlands and Belgium, penetrating multiple verticals including financial services, healthcare, legal services and public sector,” said Wouter Klinkhamer, CEO at Zivver. “By focusing on enabling users to get their jobs done.”
Fleming’s role as CMO will cover go-to-market strategies and Erriade will be keeping a close eye on the progress of the sales side of the business.
