Huge News from Blackpoint, Rumors of Kaseya Trolling ConnectWise, and Much More!

The MSP industry is all abuzz right now with can't miss news from Blackpoint, ConnectWise and Kaseya leading the way!

Author

Wes Spencer
June 08, 2023

Huge News from Blackpoint, Rumors of Kaseya Trolling ConnectWise, and Much More!

In today's rundown:

  • 🤖 Mega News from Blackpoint Cyber

  • 🔥 Things are Heating Up with ConnectWise, is Kaseya Stroking that Fire?

Read time: 5 minutes 👇

Mega News from Blackpoint Cyber

So here we go my friends. If you didn’t see it, Blackpoint Cyber just raised a MEGA BIG round at $180 million. That eclipses the round that Huntress raised by more than double. Think about that for a minute. $190 million for an investment round dwarfs any security round we’ve ever seen in the channel. By far.

Now, don’t take that to mean bigger is better. It’s just a number. The amazing folks at Huntress will tell you that they raised exactly the number they wanted. And so did Blackpoint.

I will say: I’m very interested to see what the implications of this raise are for Blackpoint. Will they still have control? How much of the company did Bain get? And what will they do with the money? We’ll find out. More to come!

So here’s what REALLY matters to me (and MSPs): MEGA BIG BUCKS are coming into the industry. Huge capital is pouring in. In the midst of fears of a recession, we’re still seeing huge growth.

I’m excited about this. The channel is truly growing up.

Things are Heating Up with ConnectWise, is Kaseya Stroking that Fire?

So while we were all at IT Nation Secure this week (an amazing show, by the way and huge congrats to the ConnectWise team that put this event on) news hit Reddit about ConnectWise allegedly missed their targets and is left with no suitors for an acquisition. If you missed the Reddit post, you can read up on it here.

Now, here’s the thing. This newsletter isn’t one for gossip. But there’s SO MUCH MORE behind the scenes here that I need to explain:

  1. Why was this post sent during IT Nation? To be, the obvious reason is to stir up malcontent at a time when ConnectWise was supposed to shine. Not cool.

  2. Notice the end of the post: My advice - don’t be the last to leave this sinking ship. Make contingency plans now! Come on now, that’s a low blow.

  3. The data given was fairly accurate but not exactly correct. This tells me it comes from someone in the know, but not deep inside the mechanics of what’s actually happening.

So given the above facts, who would do such a thing? Multiple sources tell me it was Kaseya themselves. I have no way to verify this but… if this is true, I’m embarrassed.

I have a friend high up in the investment world and when I shared that post with him he said: “Wow. Look we all have competitors. But your industry really needs to grow up. Our CEO would never send anything like that to another.”

So right on the heels of this, ConnectWise responded in the thread. They called the post: First, this post is wildly uninformed and a strategically timed attempt to spread misinformation and waste TSP/MSP time. While the second part of that reply is true, the first part is anything but true.

The post is largely accurate. As I covered in the last newsletter, all my sources firmly say that ConnectWise is out of options for this round. And while some of the numbers by the anonymous poster might be off, it sure isn’t wildly uninformed in the least. Makes you wonder.

Also, if you’d like to read up on the ConnectWise spin, CRN did a great post covering their view on what’s going on right here.

I have thoughts on this, alongside what I think the future of ConnectWise will be. It’s mostly good. But some bad. And a little scary. For I’ll save that for a future newsletter.

That's all for now!

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