Chainguard Debuts Inaugural Channel Program To Expand Its Sales Reach: Exclusive

With the new Chainguard Partner Program, the startup is providing resources and benefits for solution providers to carry the company’s platform and tools for securing software development supply chains.

Chainguard, a leading provider of a platform and related tools for securing the software development life cycle, is launching its first partner program with the goal of globally recruiting solution providers, resellers, distributors and other channel partners.

The new two-tier Chainguard Partner Program, officially unveiled Wednesday, offers partners a broad range of benefits and resources, including financial incentives, deal registration, training and technical enablement, sales enablement and joint marketing opportunities.

“We have long viewed the channel as an opportunity for us to expand, but we wanted to do it at the right time,” said Chainguard President Ryan Carlson (pictured) in an interview with CRN. “We think now is the right time for a number of reasons.”

Chainguard, founded in 2021, provides technology that aims to dramatically improve the security of the software supply chain and open-source software—which the company says now makes up more than 90 percent of the code in modern applications. The company’s offerings include container images, virtual machine images, software libraries and more to help development teams avoid vulnerabilities.

In May, for example, Chainguard debuted Chainguard Libraries for Python, an index of malware-resistant Python dependencies built securely from original source code that provides application security teams with assurance that malware has not been inserted during the build and distribution of libraries across the Python ecosystem.

Carlson noted that Chainguard has been selling its products for about two years and now has a customer base of more than 200 companies. “And in working with those companies and making them successful, we’ve learned a lot. We had to learn a lot and the best way for us to accelerate that learning was to work directly with our customers.”

The president said, for example, that Chainguard gained experience in how customers deploy its products and fit them into their software development and CICD (continuous integration, continuous delivery) processes. More importantly, he said the startup learned more about the Chainguard products’ value proposition—not just in terms of improving software security, but also the productivity gains Chainguard brings to software development and software engineering teams by reducing and eliminating such chores as patching software vulnerabilities.

“Now that we have all that learning and we can clearly and quickly articulate what we do, now’s the time to bring on great channel partners,” Carlson said. “And so, this is the first time we’ve officially launched a channel partner program.”

Carlson also noted that Chainguard now has the resources it needs to expand. In April Chainguard, based in Kirkland, Wash., raised $356 million in Series D funding, bringing the company’s total financing to $612 million and boosting its valuation to $3.5 billion.

Until now Chainguard has sometimes worked with solution providers in delivering its products, usually at the request of a customer that already relies on a solution or service provider, Carlson said.

“Chainguard is solving one of the most urgent problems in enterprise technology today—securing the software supply chain without slowing down development,” said Rich Douros, CRO at Defy, a Canonsburg, Pa.-based cybersecurity services consulting firm and an early Chainguard partner. “Their secure-by-default approach is exactly what our customers need to build with confidence and speed,” he said in a statement.

With the new channel program, the company looks to recruit reseller partners, including VARs, distributors, solution providers and systems integrators, to help sell and deploy Chainguard’s software. Carlson said the company expects to particularly work with channel partners with a security focus who will “help us reach the security audience in particular … and they’re very familiar with that audience.” But partners with expertise and customers in software development practices also will be important, he said.

Another partner Chainguard recently recruited is Evotek, an IT solution provider and digital business enabler, based in Solana Beach, Calif., that’s focused on helping businesses and organizations transform and modernize their IT infrastructure and operations. CRO Jason Myers, in an interview with CRN, said Evotek is now working to best understand Chainguard’s capabilities “so that we can represent and communicate those capabilities to our customers.”

Myers noted that businesses and organizations today are trying to accelerate their software development processes. But faster software development can lead to increased security risks.

“We believe that Chainguard has a value proposition that’s interesting to our customers, especially in the modern application development world,” Myers said. “Everything is modern. Everything is new. Legacy doesn’t work anymore. So we want to understand how our [vendor] partners are solving these challenges for customers and what their capabilities are so that we can build that credibility and trust with all of our best customers,” he said.

That view was echoed by Luke Kiernan, head of cybersecurity at U.K.-based Bytes, an IT solution and services provider that is also an early participant in the new Chainguard Partner Program.

“At Bytes, we actively seek out vendors who disrupt conventional thinking and bring innovative perspectives to the cybersecurity landscape,” Kiernan said in a statement. “From our first interaction with Chainguard, it was evident they embodied this mindset, delivering a forward-thinking, developer-first approach to securing the software supply chain. We look forward to developing our partnership and driving greater value for our customers through modern, resilient and secure software practices.”

Because Chainguard’s software is deployed within a customer’s IT system, rather than provided as Software as a Service, it lends itself well to a reseller model, Carlson said.

And because Chainguard sees itself as a pioneer offering a cutting-edge and category-leading technology, the company is seeking channel partners who can help educate potential clients about the benefits of using Chainguard.

“One of the things we’re looking for is, we’re looking for partners and resellers—and a channel broadly—that align themselves with the leader in any space because we are that leader,” Carlson said. Another partner attribute Chainguard is seeking: Partners must serve as trusted advisers to their clients, particularly for customers working through significant software transformation initiatives.

The president said the new partner program is now active. It offers a two-tier structure “with escalating benefits for channel partners based on engagement and impact,” according to the company announcement.

The program provides flexible incentives for partners, including rewards for sourced deals, co-sell influence and referrals, according to Chainguard. It also offers partner-exclusive training, on-boarding, deal registration, lead creation tools and participation in the company’s Partner & Technical Advisory Council. Joint go-to-market support includes account mapping, sales enablement, marketing support and co-branding initiatives.

Evotek’s Myers said a vendor’s technology and capabilities are the top reasons why his company partners with an IT vendor. But he said he values a partner program “that offers predictability” around financial incentives, financial protections and benefits. “So the structure is very important,” he said.

“From what I’ve seen, Chainguard has the maturity and the structure that is going to allow us to be successful together,” Myers added.

Chainguard also offers its products through the online marketplaces operated by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud and Carlson said partners can transact business there as well, depending on customer preferences.

Carlson declined to disclose specific goals about the number of partners Chainguard is looking to recruit or the amount of revenue the company expects to generate through the channel.

“We do believe that any company on the planet that’s building software can use Chainguard,” he said, citing startups to top Fortune 500 companies, along with government agencies and educational entities. “We won’t stop until every company that wants to work with a partner that can add value is working with Chainguard as well,” he added.

“We’re freeing up people from a former way of doing things,” Carlson said. “And so, we want that success that we’re enabling to be extended to our partners. …When Chainguard wins, we want every partner possible to win as well.”