For the week ending July 12, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including AMD, K3 Technology, Microsoft, Orca Security and Nasuni.

The Week Ending July 12

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is chip designer AMD for a strategic acquisition in the AI technology space.

Also making this week’s list are managed IT services provider K3 Technology for its own acquisition that will help it expand geographically, Microsoft for additional investments in its partner program for the new fiscal year, Orca Security for a savvy top channel management hire, and data protection provider Nasuni for new funding that will accelerate its growth plans.

AMD To Acquire AI Lab And LLM Developer Silo AI

AMD this week reached a deal to acquire Silo AI, which the company called the largest private AI lab in Europe and a developer of open-source multilingual large language models.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip designer said the all-cash transaction, valued at roughly $665 million, “represents another significant step in the company’s strategy to deliver end-to-end AI solutions based on open standards and in strong partnership with the global AI ecosystem.”

The deal is expected to close later this year.

AMD announced the acquisition as it increases its investments in AI and releases accelerate chips at a faster cadence in the face of unrelenting generative AI innovation and Nvidia’s aggressive strategy that has allowed that company to dominate the AI computing market.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Silo AI employs “world-class” AI scientists and engineers who have “extensive experience developing tailored AI models, platforms and solutions for leading enterprises spanning cloud, embedded and endpoint computing markets,” according to AMD.

Silo AI is one of three AI-related acquisitions AMD has made in the past year. In addition to acquiring Mipsology and Nod.ai in 2023, the company said it has invested more than $125 million in a dozen AI startups to boost its AI strategy.

K3 Technology Acquires MSP OG2 Network Services

Staying on the topic of savvy acquisitions, managed IT services provider K3 Technology makes this week’s Came to Win list for its acquisition of OG2 Network services, a Dallas-based MSP.

K3, which focuses on cloud, cybersecurity and AI services, sees the acquisition as creating more opportunities for the company to expand in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. K3 is headquartered in Denver and has a few clients in the Houston area, founder and CEO Kelly Kercher told CRN, but none in Dallas. (K3 also has some clients on the East Coast, including in Washington D.C.)

Since being founded in 2017, K3 has gained recognition for positively disrupting the way businesses in the architectural, engineering, construction and creative agency industries leverage technology. Kercher said K3 is rapidly evolving with the adoption of AI and is doing “almost everything” differently than two years ago.

New Microsoft Partner Program Investments Include Millions For Security, Azure And Copilot

Microsoft plans more than $150 million in pre-sales and post-sales investments for its Azure Innovate offering, an incremental $90 million “to accelerate security growth” with partners, and a tenfold increase to its Copilot partner investment as part of a new fiscal year of partner incentives to win the battle for artificial intelligence supremacy.

The money, detailed in a company blog post this week, is part of a series of benefits and incentives revealed for the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant’s partner program as it readies its 400,000-strong ecosystem to deliver and execute AI projects.

Along with the $150 million for Azure Innovate – launched in 2023 to help partners and customers infuse AI into applications, experiences, advanced analytics and custom cloud-native app building – Microsoft said it will increase by 50 percent its investments for the Azure Migrate and Modernize offering this fiscal year. Migrate and Modernize comes with curated resources and assistance for updating and shifting on-premises infrastructure and data to Azure.

Microsoft also will increase incentives for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners in areas including Microsoft 365 E3, E5 and Business Premium packages. Under the new investments, CSP partners can earn up to $120,000 for M365 E3 workloads per customer.

As for the $90 million in incremental security investments, Microsoft said it will continue threat protection assessments and bring back data security assessments.

It wasn’t all good news for everyone in the Microsoft universe this week as an undisclosed number of managers, engineers and other employees lost their jobs in a round of layoffs. And on “Patch Tuesday” Microsoft made fixes available for a near record number of CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) – including five critical CVEs – for Microsoft software.

Orca Security Hires Zscaler, Dell Veteran As New Channel Chief

Orca Security this week named Dell Technologies veteran John Tavares as its new channel chief, with an aim toward doubling down on partners as part of a channel-focused growth push.

Tavares, whose title is senior vice president of worldwide partner and alliances sales, joins Orca from cybersecurity vendor Zscaler, where he served as vice president of partners and alliances since late 2022. Before that, he held a similar role at Commvault.

Earlier in his career, Tavares spent more than two decades at EMC Corp. and then four more years at Dell Technologies following the tech giant’s acquisition of EMC. In his final role at Dell, Tavares spent nearly three years as vice president of sales.

In an interview with CRN, Tavares said that in addition to bolstering opportunities for all partners, he will bring a particular focus on increasing the services delivery opportunities for the channel, including expanding managed services opportunities. Orca’s channel team will also be pursuing overall program enhancements to assist partners, including through ensuring consistency across the various types of partner engagements, Tavares said.

New Growth Funding Boosts Nasuni’s Valuation To $1.2B

Data protection platform provider Nasuni this week announced a strategic growth investment led by global investment firm Vista Equity Partners that boosts Nasuni’s valuation to $1.2 billion.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed. Vista was joined by private equity companies TCV and KKR in the investment.

Nasuni President David Grant told CRN that Nasuni took the investment because it will allow the company to scale up and pursue other growth opportunities such as providing data services to the federal government. Grant said Nasuni is cash flow positive and has been growing its annual recurring revenue by about 30 percent.