Performanta CEO Guy Golan: 'We're aiming for between 40 and 60 per cent revenue growth. But I want to exceed 100 per cent

The MSSP boss reveals to CRN his five-year plan to transition Performanta into a SaaS platform

Performanta CEO Guy Golan has bold ambitions for the future of the MSSP, including major revenue growth over the next 12 months and a complete transition to become a SaaS platform.

First, the growth plans, which Golan reveals to CRN as he lays out his priorities for the next year.

"On the agenda for the next 12 months is to cement our offering in Safe XDR to make sure there's a new standard and challenge to the current way that the cybersecurity market is operating, which is absolutely not really adding value to so many clients."

In March, Performanta integrated Microsoft's Copilot for Security to launch Safe XDR, billing it as the world's first AI-verified extended detection and response (XDR) service.

Since its launch, Golan says progress has been "tremendous", having signed significant new logos across four continents.

He adds that the cybersecurity market needs to start getting to a point where it truly addresses the biggest problems. For Performanta to address these issues it needs two things: marketing and sales growth.

"We need more marketing and more exposure. Second is to grow our footprint in terms of sales, especially in the UK and the US.

"That means that potentially in the next 12 months, we would be looking at further growth that is derived from a further investment in the business.

"We're looking at anything between 40 and 60 per cent revenue growth. But I want to exceed 100 per cent growth, and do it organically.

"We have built a platform that can scale and it's now about getting that out to the market.

"On annual recurring revenue we're on about £20m and I want to achieve over £40m."

On how he plans to achieve these goals, Golan says it is about splashing more cash and levelling up with Microsoft.

"If we had the cash infusion that we are looking at, we would increase our marketing spend, our ability to be exposed with lots of opinion pieces and white papers.

"In terms of our relationship with Microsoft, we expect to deepen it even more on a global scale.

"And then the sales team on the ground, start appointing MSPs to work with us and that they can benefit from our services and make good margins or on a global scale as well."

From VAR, to MSSP, to SaaS platform

During the latest episode of Channel Champions, Golan revealed his plans to take Performanta on a journey to become a SaaS platform from an MSSP.

Delving deeper into how and why, Golan explains the Safe XDR platform is at the centre of the plan.

"The way we need to do this is to take the Safe XDR platform and take it from a normal platform which we use for our own services and apply it to our clients.

"We are providing the services and then the platform is there to help us provide the service.

"So we built a platform that is for our use. The moment that the platform is for other partners to use while they can complement it with our services then it's a genuine SaaS platform.

"That means we will invest instead of providing just the service in five years' time, we will be much more into innovation and development and growth which we already have now, but it's smaller-scale compared to what we want to be in five years."

Golan says very few companies have successfully transitioned from a service provider into a technology provider or a SaaS provider, singling out embedded finance platform Liberis as one such success story.

On the next steps of this journey to SaaS, Golan says Performanta is currently "tying up loose ends" to make it a single working bench.

"Then we will be able to take that platform and make sure that it is available for others to manage as opposed to Performanta.

"That requires quite a lot of productisation around it. The productisation is twofold, focusing on product and marketing."

Cyber safety is more important than simple cybersecurity

Golan's passion for the future of cybersecurity shines through as he declares his goal for this year is to "open people's eyes about what security should become."

"We'll do this through talking to opinion makers like the Gartners and Forresters of the world and opening their eyes," he says.

"Using our relation with Microsoft as a leverage for that level of discussion, because we are very like minded between Microsoft and Performanta about how security should be. We are an extension of theirs and they are a reflection of our abilities to execute to get that in place."

Part of this mission includes Performanta's part on the Cyber Safety Force (CSF), a group of like-minded security pros who want to reform the way businesses think about cybersecurity.

Launched earlier this year, the consortium has around 70 members.

To try and change how businesses think about threat defence and risk management, the CSF provides content people can use as tools to help them understand why cyber safety is more important than just simple cybersecurity.

Since its inception, Golan claims Performanta's "northern star", its objective hasn't changed - to create a safer environment for clients.

"To keep them from harm, let them focus on the business as opposed to just cyber and do it in an affordable and transparent way."