The new “Resell With Confluent” program promises simplified, automated processes for price quotes, deal approvals and other steps in closing and fulfilling sales of Confluent’s streaming data software.
Confluent has launched a new reseller partner program that the data streaming platform developer says will help system integrator and solution provider partners streamline cloud resell deals with automated price quotes, instant approvals and co-marketing funds.
The new Resell With Confluent program is the latest of a series of channel initiatives the company has launched over the last two years to engage with multiple types of partners including systems integrators, OEMs and ISVs.
The move comes as Confluent is in the process of being acquired by IBM in an $11 billion deal announced in December. IBM plans to combine Confluent’s real-time streaming data technology with its AI infrastructure software and automation systems.
[Related: IBM’s $11 Billion Confluent Deal: 5 Things To Watch]
All this comes at a time when the surge in AI system development and deployment is putting greater demands on IT systems to supply greater volumes of data. AI, including generative AI and agentic AI applications, need a steady stream of high-quality data—often in real-time—to perform their tasks.
Confluent, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., develops its data streaming platform to manage and process the increasing volumes of what it calls “data in motion” generated by today’s operational IT systems, such as online retail web sites and financial trading applications.
Data streaming is an important strategic priority for 86 percent of IT leaders, Confluent said in the Sell With Confluent announcement, citing its own 2025 Data Streaming Report. The announcement also said the data streaming platform market represents a $100 billion opportunity.
“We have a ton of momentum in our cloud business,” said Kamal Brar (pictured), senior vice president of Confluent’s Partners and Technology Group, in an interview with CRN. And transactions through the channel for Confluent’s cloud software, he said, are a growing part of that.
The Most Recent Of Many Channel Moves
Over the last two years the company has been expanding its channel efforts, including launching the Connect with Confluent program in 2023 to help software partners integrate their products with the Confluent platform. In 2024 the company debuted the Accelerate with Confluent and Build with Confluent programs in 2024 for systems integrator partners, an initiative to enlist and assist partners who help customers upgrade from Kafka to Confluent, and an OEM channel program to recruit managed service providers, cloud service providers and independent software vendors to build the Confluent platform into their software and service offerings.
In July of last year Confluent pledged to invest $200 million over the next three years to expand the reach and capabilities of the company’s global partner ecosystem around its data streaming platform. That funding boost was particularly focused on getting partners, including cloud service providers, ISVs, system integrators, technology partners and managed service providers, to either embed Confluent’s data streaming technology within their own products and services to create new revenue-generating solutions or develop native integrations between partner offerings and the Confluent platform. Some of that funding is going toward co-developing data streaming use-cases with partners and go-to-market plans around those solutions.
Partner-sourced sales deals account for about 25 percent of Confluent’s business today, Brar said, including sales through resellers, global distributors and online marketplaces.
Brar said the Sell With Confluent initiative was spurred by feedback from partners that in order to successfully resell Confluent’s cloud software, the resell and fulfillment steps around closing deals —including price quoting and deal approvals—needed to be more streamlined and automated. The goal, he said, is to remove whatever is holding partners back, including “slow approvals, murky pricing [and] complicated processes.”
Sell With Confluent, in the works for about six months, is supported by Confluent’s recently launched Partner Nexus digital hub. The new program is targeted toward solution providers, service providers and regional systems integrators, according to Brar, especially those working with small and mid-size clients.
“It’s effectively anyone who is able to drive the resell motion with us,” he said. “Most of our partners want to drive not just a services motion, but an end-to-end customer relationship.”
That resonates with partners such as Pellera Technologies, the Tallahassee, Fla.-based IT solutions provider created last year through the merger of Converge Technology Solutions and Mainline Information Systems.
“Our clients need real-time data capabilities to stay competitive,” said Alex Widrick, AppMod and Cloud Leader–Northeast at Pellera, in a statement. “Sell with Confluent makes it simple for us to deliver. The program equips us with everything we need to grow our data streaming business while helping customers modernize their data infrastructure with confidence.”
While partners have long been able to resell Confluent’s software for on-premises deployment, Brar said cloud sales can be more complex. Price quotes, for example, involve many more variables such as deployment across multi-cloud environments.
‘Sell With Confluent’ Program Details
Sell With Confluent includes “accelerated profitability and incentives,” according to the company. The partner rewards framework has been restructured to ensure that resellers “are highly compensated for sourcing and closing deals,” creating opportunities for market-competitive “double-digit discounts.”
Also new are self-service quoting tools that enable immediate price quote generation with programmatic discounts applied automatically, according to Confluent. Partners also receive deal protection to safeguard sourced opportunities.
And a new Business Investment Fund offers funding for marketing activities such as workshops, regional events and customer engagement programs.
“Speed is everything when customers need to modernize their data infrastructure,” said Anuj Kaushal, senior manager, global partnerships at Persistent Systems, a global digital engineering and enterprise modernization services provider with headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., and Pune, India. “Sell with Confluent helps us scale our streaming business quickly and meet customer demand without delay. This simplicity lets our team focus on what matters: helping customers modernize and innovate with real-time solutions,” he said in a statement.
Brar said Confluent is considering an even broader revamp of its partner program, including providing more tools and resources, with a focus “on how we engage with our partners and how they can double-down on their engagements with us.” The goals include improving the experience for existing partners and recruiting new partners.
