By Kathy Gibson – Climb Channel Solutions is a relatively unknown name in the South African and broader African market, but the distributor is hoping to change that as it targets the region as its next growth phase.
The company has launched in South Africa as a strategic Sophos partner, with the aim of advancing Sophos’s cybersecurity offerings and Agentic AI strategy in the market.
Although the Sophos partnership covers just South Africa, Climb intends to move strongly in the wider sub-Saharan Africa region with other vendors – and with an innovative new business model.
And, while Climb may not be a household name in Africa, it has a healthy footprint across the world.
The distributor was established in 1986 as Lifeboat but changed its name to Climb when it listed on Nasdaq in 2000. In 2025, Climb reported $2,1 billion in global revenue.
“We are one of the fastest growing distributors, and are constantly expanding,” says Andrew Potgieter, sales director: South Africa at Climb.
This is one of the reasons Sophos chose to partner with Climb, he adds. Plus, the distributor’s procurement systems, business efficiency and API integration that help to speed processes all contributed to the synergy.
“Our approach to the market is to get the Sophos solutions into the end customers’ hands as quickly as possible.”
This speed is what helps Climb to scale quickly, and it is putting that into practice in the African region.
A key to the distributor’s success is the fact that it limits the number of both its vendors and its reseller partners, says Gerard Brophy, chief revenue officer: UK and EMEA at Climb. “By doing this, we can grow both them and us significantly.”
This vendor exclusivity means that Climb can focus on one solution and make sure it works for partners and customers. “There is a lot of competition in the security space,” Brophy says. “We think of ourselves as a specialist that thoroughly understands the solution and can help customers.
“With Sophos as the base, Climb will add complementary vendors to its portfolio, and build a solid ecosystem,” he adds.
Expanding into the South African market is a strategic next step for Climb, as it seeks to grow its EMEA market share and revenue.
The company is investing significantly in staff, expertise and infrastructure as it ramps up its Sophos business.
Screenshot
“We are here to stay,” says Brophy. “With $2,1-billion revenue, Climb has grown quickly into a significant business worldwide and we see a clear opportunity to build on that momentum as we continue to scale internationally.”
“Our goal in South Africa is to generate a 100% increase in Sophos sales. The investment into this market is a key driver for our business growth.”
Potgieter adds that the team is in place, and already proactively bringing Sophos solutions to market. “We are very like Sophos in that we are targeting aggressive growth.”
The Climb-Sophos partnership comes at a time of increasing cybersecurity urgency in South Africa. According to the Sophos State of Ransomware 2025 report, South African organisations face an escalating crisis, with 71% of surveyed firms paying ransoms, which is a sharp increase from 43% in 2024.
Climb’s partnership with Sophos introduces new opportunities for South African partners to address a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Sophos supports more than 600 000 organisations globally with its industry-leading managed detection and response (MDR) alongside a comprehensive portfolio of cybersecurity technologies, which includes endpoint, network, email, and cloud security, extended detection and response (XDR), identity threat detection and response (ITDR), and next-gen SIEM.
The distributor has already started signing up South African reseller partners that offer both licensing and managed service provider (MSP) services.