CloudKnox Kicks Channel Into High Gear with New VP of Sales, Funding Round

CloudKnox Security, a provider of identity authorization for hybrid and multicloud environments, has hired John Donnelly as vice president of sales, charged with leading the company’s channel organization.

CloudKnox also has closed $12 million in a new round of funding, led by Sorenson Ventures, with participation from early investors, including ClearSky Security, Dell Technologies Capital and Foundation Capital. That brings CloudKnox’s total funding to more than $22.7 million. The investment will be used to further accelerate the company’s product and go-to-market plans.

CloudKnox’s John Donnelly

Donnelly previously was sales adviser for ClearSky Security and Wing Venture Capital. He also was vice president of sales for MobileIron and Vontu, where he built channel organizations.

CloudKnox’s partners include MSSPs and resellers.

Donnelly tells us CloudKnox is 100% partner-focused and “we are investing heavily to enable our partner community, [to] provide them a world-class solution and experience.”

“CloudKnox has been built from the ground up to support the MSSP community,” he said. “We saw early on customers requiring partners to support them in their cloud journey. Our MSSP community can expect world-class tools and support as they help to secure identity in the cloud.”

Donnelly said his to-do list includes recruiting and enabling “best in class” partners, continuing to invest in all the necessary tools to help enable partners to be “recognized as leaders in the cloud security journey,” and keeping “our eyes open” for new opportunities to accelerate channel adoption.”

The new investment comes on the heels of triple-digit growth in 2019 fueled by rising demand from enterprise organizations looking to protect their critical cloud resources from accidental and malicious insider threats, the company said.

“We’ve seen exceptional growth from customers and prospects looking to address the No. 1 risk in their cloud infrastructure,” said Balaji Parimi, CloudKnox‘s CEO and founder. “This positioned us to pre-emptively secure another round of funding to leverage strong market adoption and accelerate our customer expansion.”