Dasera’s Partnership Playbook: How Strategic OEM Relationships Accelerated Growth in a Crowded Security Market

When market leaders like Palo Alto Networks and Crowdstrike began acquiring companies to build out their data security capabilities, most startups saw it as a threat. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Dasera founder Ani Chaudhuri revealed how they turned this industry consolidation into an opportunity through strategic partnerships.

Identifying the Partnership Opportunity

The insight came from watching market dynamics unfold. “We kind of re-architected our product for partnerships and oems because we realize that yes, the Palo Alto and crowdstrikes of the world and the rubrics of the worlds did go acquire some companies so that they can tightly integrate,” Ani explains. But this created an opportunity: “There are lots of companies that compete with them and they need these weapons too.”

The Technical Foundation

Before pursuing partnerships, Dasera made a crucial strategic decision. “Our strategy from the very beginning has been that we will be the best technology in the space, then we will be the best customer success company in the space. And then we are going to go and talk about marketing and sales,” Ani shares. This technical excellence made them an attractive partner.

Disrupting the Cost Structure

In an industry known for high customer acquisition costs (“this space spends anywhere between ten to $20 per dollar that is brought in”), Dasera took a radical approach to pricing. They offered their solution at “about $500 per datastore per month so you can get started,” making it easier for partners to include their technology in broader solutions.

The Partnership Momentum

The strategy is already showing results. After announcing partnerships with Cisco and Cohesity, Ani reveals, “We have two or three in the pipeline, which we will be announcing through June and July. I think those will reduce the amount of friction that we see today as a startup.”

Making Partnerships Work

For Dasera, successful partnerships required three key elements:

1. Technical Excellence: Building superior technology that partners could trust
2. Flexible Integration: Re-architecting their product specifically for partnerships
3. Competitive Pricing: Making it economically viable for partners

Market Education Through Partners

These partnerships played a crucial role in market education. “Last year was a year where people were educating themselves about data security,” Ani notes. Partners helped accelerate this education process, leading to real results: “Now we are seeing that the same budgets are coming into play… our expected growth this year is going to be in five to ten x from last year.”

The Pricing Strategy

Perhaps most interestingly, Dasera’s pricing strategy wasn’t just about being cheaper – it was about removing barriers to adoption. As Ani puts it, “There’s no excuse not to get started in terms of protecting your data.” This approach made it easier for partners to bundle Dasera’s capabilities with their existing solutions.

Lessons for B2B Founders

Dasera’s partnership strategy offers several key insights for founders:

1. Look for opportunities in market consolidation
2. Build technical excellence before pursuing partnerships
3. Price for partner success
4. Use partnerships to accelerate market education
5. Remove adoption barriers through pricing innovation

For B2B founders, particularly in security and enterprise software, Dasera’s experience shows that partnerships can be a powerful way to accelerate growth. The key is viewing industry consolidation not as a threat, but as an opportunity to provide capabilities to companies competing with the consolidators.

Looking ahead, Ani sees these partnerships becoming even more crucial as enterprise AI adoption increases. “Enterprise AI solutions and applications is going to be a bigger headache than any chat GPT that you are thinking about today,” he predicts, suggesting that partnerships will be essential in addressing these emerging challenges.

For founders building in crowded markets, Dasera’s partnership playbook offers a clear lesson: sometimes the best way to compete with giants is to arm their competitors.