If you’re providing Microsoft 365 backup and data protection for your customers—or want to jump on the growing Microsoft 365 market—there’s a new solution for MSPs. Alcion, a startup provider of security-focused, AI-driven backup-as-a-service for Microsoft 365, launched an MSP partner program this week.
“The channel found us,” says Niraj Tolia, CEO of Alcion, which came out of stealth in May of 2023. While a partner program wasn’t on the roadmap until later this year, “the channel came to us, and in particular MSPs came to us, saying, ‘Can we resell you?’”
The increasing amounts of business-critical data stored in Microsoft 365 make it a prime target for both internal and external malicious actors, including new classes of ransomware. Alcion’s platform offers both data protection and backup. Its multi-layered approach to security includes threat detection, intelligent backup scheduling, encryption, and delete protection.
“We saw an unmet need,” says Tolia. “Ninety-plus percent of backup failures moving forward, the important ones, are all going to be cybersecurity related. People worry less about disk failing accidents, right? The biggest threat to our customers’ data is cyberthreats.”
He adds, “Security and peace of mind is a big thing that is resonating with our MSPs’ customers.”
Tolia and Vaibhav Kamra founded Alcion in 2022. Both are serial entrepreneurs with data protection expertise. They previously founded Kasten, a Kubernetes backup company that Veeam acquired in 2020.
The confluence of three trends—ransomware, the need for an easy-to-use Microsoft 365 backup solution that protects against ransomware, and the rise of artificial intelligence—prompted them to enter this market, Tolia says. “To be clear, we are a pre-ChatGPT AI company. We saw all those things come together to say, ‘look, this is going to be an exciting opportunity for us.’”
Alcion’s new MSP partner program requires no upfront or long-term commitment. The program offers usage-based consolidated billing with pay-as-you-go monthly licensing and instant license procurement.
The platform provides multitenant management, so MSPs can manage clients through a single pane of glass. Additionally, MSPs can use the partner portal to administer each customer account through delegated access without the need to manage independent credentials. Alcion also offers self-provisioning, with the ability to complete tenant onboarding within minutes.
The partner program provides pre- and post-sales support and Tolia says they are building out marketing and other collateral. He adds, “We’re introducing MDF a little later in the year.”
While Alcion does have direct sales, “we have a strong preference to push everything through the channel. The majority of our revenue is already coming from the channel.”
Tolia says Alcion, which now has 20-plus employees and counting, is currently working with just under 100 MSPs.
Last September, the startup raised $21 million in a Series A funding round led by Veeam, bringing its total funding to $29 million.
Some of that money, Tolia says, will be spent “investing a lot in the channel, in the business, this year.”
Tolia says they intend to bring on a head of partnerships and alliances soon, and that person will be assembling a team.
“If we see ourselves going to 100% channel,” Tolia notes, “that would be a success story for me.”
For more information on the Alcion partner program, go here.
