Acronis invests $10M to turn resellers into MSPs

Acronis has unveiled plans to invest $10 million to help traditional resellers transition into service providers as part of enhanced in-market channel plans.

To kick-start change, cloud service providers who sign up to be a partner between 7 October and 31 December will receive three months of free usage.

The vendor is also set to roll out a new partner program during the fourth quarter designed to “educate traditional resellers” on the benefits of converting to managed service providers (MSPs), focusing on how to acquire new customers, reduce churn and increase revenues.

“The Acronis network has over 5,800 active service providers who are building and growing their business with Acronis’ cyber protection solutions,” said Serguei Beloussov, founder and CEO, Acronis.

“In the US alone, there are over 4,400 traditional software resellers transacting with Acronis who expressed an interest in adopting the service provider business model to increase their recurrent revenues, acquire new customers and decrease customer churn.

“With the launch of this new incentive program, we are giving traditional resellers an opportunity to grow with us and build a profitable business as service providers, as well as offering MSPs the option to jumpstart their cyber protection business with Acronis.”

The incentive program follows a recent $147 million investment by Goldman Sachs, which is also designed to “fast-track” the development of products such as the Acronis Cyber Platform.

The funding round sets the valuation of the vendor at more than $1 billion while enabling the business to expand engineering capabilities in Singapore, Bulgaria and Arizona, in addition to building additional data centres and grow through acquisitions.