7 Minutes With Jessica Couto, VP, Worldwide Channels and Alliances at Intsights

**Editor’s Note: “7 Minutes” is a feature where we ask channel executives from startups – or companies that may be new to the Channel Partners audience – a series of quick questions about their businesses and channel programs.**

If Intsights channel chief Jessica Couto looks familiar, it’s because she’s a veteran of the security industry: Couto served at channel-focused security providers Kaspersky, Bit9/Carbon Black, Carbonite and Hexadite before landing at threat intelligence provider Intsights after Microsoft acquired Hexadite.

IntSights’ Jessica Couto

You may also have heard of the deep web (if not, we’re doing a, well, deep session on the topic at Channel Partners Evolution). Intsights scours the deep, dark and clear, or open, portions of the web to discover and aggregate intelligence and push it out to security analysts. The company can look for threats against specific companies, stolen credentials, pending DDoS attacks and more.

Intsights was founded in 2015, received $7.5 million Series A funding in 2016 and closed a $15 million Series-B round earlier this year. Customers include the retail, telecom, manufacturing and financial verticals – places where leaked customer data can wreak havoc on the business – and the company has announced strategic partnerships with Optiv and Check Point. It’s going up against specialists like webhose.io and RecordedFuture, but by bringing Couto on board, it’s clear Intsights sees a channel focus as a way to go deeper with customers.

Channel Partners: Tell us what customers love about your product or service. What’s the secret selling sauce?

Jessica Couto: Customers love Intsights because we detect and automatically aggregate valuable hacker reconnaissance, post-attack and unique intelligence information from a range of open and hidden sources. These include Darknets, hidden online forums, the deep and dark web, black markets, IRC channels, pastebin sites, app stores and social media. We then analyze the cyber threat data and provide straightforward remediation, all in a single console.

CP: Describe your channel program — metal levels, heavy on certifications, open or selective, unique features?

JC: The channel program is still in development, but the main goal is to disrupt the market with our partners. It will be simple to understand, selective in the beginning as we scale, and have extremely healthy margins for our partners.

CP: Quick-hit answers: Percentage of sales through the channel, number of partners, average margin. Go.

JC: Intsights is committed to being 100-percent channel-focused. And we appreciate the fact that the channel is critical to the success of addressing the customer’s cyber needs. Working together, as one team, is the right approach to thwart cyber threats.

CP: Who are your main competitors, and what makes your offering better? (If you prefer not to sketch out the competitive landscape that’s fine, we’ll do so in the intro.)

JC: Our competitors consist of …

… a wide variety of brands [that] offer only one element in their solution compared to what we offer, which is a multi-pronged approach. Our solution provides three elements: Research, Intelligence and a TIP (Threat Intelligence Platform) with a layer of analytics. Combining these three elements can provide a single pane of glass to detect, analyze, categorize, prioritize and remediate real time.

CP: How do you think your technology portfolio will change in the next three years?

JC: IntSights will continue to improve the features within each element based on needs from our MSSP partners and customers. We will be expanding our Alliances portfolio extensively effective immediately.

CP: How do you expect your channel strategy to evolve over that timeframe?

JC: The channel strategy will evolve by expanding into other geographical markets as the demand grows. Additionally, we will continue to work closely with our partners who are both resellers and managed service providers to ensure we are giving them what they need to be successful. One of my goals is to enable the channel as quick and efficient as possible, while also scaling globally.

CP: What didn’t we ask that partners should know?

JC: Partners should know that customers are looking for ways to consolidate their threat intelligence tools into fewer consoles and to spend less while doing more. Our solution will provide for a positive result in consolidating solutions while helping to reduce spend overall.