Microsoft CSPs will no longer be rewarded for “moving customers sideways”, the founder of Onyx has warned after his firm secured a “multi-million-pound” funding round.
Founded in 2024 by former SoftwareOne execs Neil Lomax and Chris Brown, Onyx claims its CSP Growth Engine helps Microsoft partners to win, manage and grow their CSP business.
It today announced it has bagged a funding round with investment group Triple Point designed to help it expand internationally and further develop its platform.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Lomax characterised it as a “one-and-done” funding move.
“It sets up the business for the next few years now,” he said.
Onyx is aiming to help MSPs capture “one of the largest shifts in revenue the channel has ever seen” as Microsoft moves most customers off legacy Enterprise Agreements (EAs) and into a CSP model.
“Based on market estimates, the CSP landscape could reach as high as $147bn by FY28, driven by EA-to-CSP transitions and all-up global growth in Microsoft consumption that increasingly skews toward CSP,” it stated.
So where does Lomax stand on Microsoft’s latest CSP funding changes, which have drawn praise from some experts despite perceptions that the overall pot has got smaller?
“The days of being rewarded for simply moving customers sideways from one partner to another are over,” Lomax said of the changes.
“Microsoft wants partners focused on growth, genuine adoption and real customer outcomes, and the incentive model is now catching up with that ambition.”
Lomax claimed the changes “reinforce exactly why we built Onyx”.
“When the incentive model shifts, partners need the intelligence and commercial capability to adapt fast, find the opportunity in the new structure, and keep delivering the right outcomes for their customers, for Microsoft, and for themselves. That’s what we’re built for,” he concluded.
“When the team that built the largest Microsoft transactional partner in the world decides this is a problem worth solving, you pay attention,” Jamie Tomalin, Partner, Triple Point Ventures, added in a statement.
