Opaq Networks: $22.5 Million Venture Financing Will Have Direct Partner Benefit

Opaq Networks operates a 100-percent channel model.

Edward Gately, Senior News Editor

April 12, 2018

3 Min Read
Financial Growth

Opaq Networks has closed a $22.5 million Series B round of venture financing led by new investor Greenspring Associates, with continuing participation from Columbia Capital and Harmony Partners.

Hazard-Glenn_Opaq-Networks.jpg

Opaq Networks’ Glenn Hazard

Glenn Hazard, Opaq’s chairman and CEO, tells Channel Partners this his company operates a 100-percent channel model, and this new round of financing is earmarked to accelerate its go-to-market with its partners. The company also announced that Hunter Somerville, partner at Greenspring, will join its board of directors.

“We will be investing in infrastructure, sales support and marketing to soften the market for Opaq partners, help them attract and retain midsize enterprise clients, and empower them to scale quickly and profitably,” Hazard said. “One of the many benefits of becoming an Opaq partner is our market development fund (MDF) program, which enables our partners to pursue opportunities with our financial and other support. In addition, this new round of financing will help support other revenue accelerator programs for our partners.”

To help Opaq partners increase sales and margins, the company has three packages that partners can immediately take to their midsize clients, each designed to align with end user clients’ varying levels of security maturity:

  • The Sight and Control package: Partners can monitor and measure the effectiveness of their client’s security environment, and demonstrate value to technical and non-technical decision makers. To help accelerate customer on-boarding, partners also can offer a streamlined assessment of client technical security controls and compliance maturity.

  • The Secure Cloud Access package builds on the first package and allows partners to control and secure cloud/SaaS access while improving the end-user experience. Client traffic is directed through Opaq’s software-defined and encrypted network where user authentication is federated, dual-factor authentication is enforced, and threat detection can be applied to any traffic, including remote access to cloud applications.

  • The Security-as-a-Service package includes all of the previous package benefits and allows partners to close security gaps, and reduce risk and exposure by delivering a fully integrated security stack based on enterprise-grade components.

“Opaq partners will play a very collaborative role as we accelerate our go-to-market,” Hazard said. “We will engage in joint programs that bring together midsize enterprises and demonstrate the business and security value of the security-as-a-service solution.”

In the past three months, Opaq has announced a strategic partnership with Palo Alto Networks, introduced its microsegmentation technology for endpoints and acquired FourV Systems to beef up its security-as-a-service platform.

“Opaq Networks has redefined the security-as-a-service market,” Somerville said. “Its demonstrated progress to date and strategic acquisitions place the company in a position of real market leadership. Opaq Networks joins an existing and prior portfolio of cybersecurity company investments like Proofpoint and Cloudflare. I look forward to working with the veteran security management team at Opaq to continue to capitalize on this large and rapidly growing market opportunity.”

Read more about:

Agents

About the Author

Edward Gately

Senior News Editor, Channel Futures

As senior news editor, Edward Gately covers cybersecurity, new channel programs and program changes, M&A and other IT channel trends. Prior to Informa, he spent 26 years as a newspaper journalist in Texas, Louisiana and Arizona.

Free Newsletters for the Channel
Register for Your Free Newsletter Now

You May Also Like