Huntress Enters African Cybersecurity Channel With QBS Software Africa

Key Takeaways

• The cybersecurity provider is using a regional channel network to reach African MSPs and VARs, starting in South Africa.
• Partners will gain access to the Agentic Security Platform and a 24/7 AI-centric Security Operations Center.
• The agreement targets mid-market and small businesses that often lack the staff and resources to operate security functions internally.

Huntress is extending its managed cybersecurity business into Africa through a distribution agreement with QBS Software Africa, giving regional managed service providers and value-added resellers a new route to its security platform and round-the-clock operational support.

The initial rollout will focus on South Africa before moving into additional Sub-Saharan African markets. According to Channel Insider, the distributor will contribute local partner relationships, technical assistance and go-to-market support as the security vendor establishes its regional presence.

Cybersecurity products can be delivered remotely, but channel development still depends heavily on regional knowledge, existing commercial relationships and support that reflects local customer conditions. The local distributor can help the security provider navigate those details while giving MSPs and VARs a distribution contact closer to their own operations.

Under the agreement, African partners will be able to offer the Agentic Security Platform. Its coverage spans endpoints, identities, logs, security posture and employee behavior, backed by a 24/7 AI-centric Security Operations Center. That combination gives channel partners both technology and access to security analysts without requiring each MSP to build a full SOC independently.

Operating a SOC is expensive and staffing it around the clock is difficult. The challenge can be especially pronounced for smaller providers serving mid-market and small-business customers. Those customers face many of the same identity, endpoint and social-engineering risks as larger enterprises, but they typically have fewer dedicated security personnel.

A shared managed-security model can narrow that gap. An MSP can retain the customer relationship and provide regional service while relying on the platform for monitoring, investigation and response capabilities. This may also let partners expand recurring security revenue without taking on all the hiring, tooling and process costs associated with an internal SOC.

The commercial timing aligns with rising market demand. The global managed security services market was valued at approximately $36.22 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $113.93 billion by 2034, representing a 15.4% compound annual growth rate, according to Zion Market Research. Africa's managed security services segment is projected to grow at roughly 12.6% annually from 2026 through 2032, with the broader Middle East and Africa market forecast to reach $4.6 billion by 2035.

Security teams have to monitor endpoints, cloud services, identity systems and employee activity while sorting genuine threats from a large volume of alerts. For organizations with lean IT departments, outside monitoring can be more practical than assembling every capability in-house.

Standards will still shape how those services are evaluated. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework, whose latest revision was released in 2024, gives organizations a structured way to govern, identify, protect, detect, respond to and recover from cyber risk. African MSPs could use that structure to define responsibilities between their teams, the security provider and customers rather than treating managed detection as an isolated product.

Likewise, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 provides a widely used basis for information security management systems. Alignment with such standards can help partners document controls, establish escalation procedures and demonstrate how an outsourced SOC fits within a broader risk-management program. Buying monitoring alone is not the same as building sound governance.

Competition will be another factor. The vendor joins a channel market in which Ingram Micro, Liquid PC and Vertosoft are also expanding managed security offerings through distribution and reseller ecosystems. The distributor's ability to recruit, train and support active partners could therefore prove more consequential than the nominal size of its reseller network.

The platform's expansion introduces a major security option to the region. The next test is regional execution: converting that technology into services that African MSPs can package, support and sell at price points their customers can sustain.

For Huntress, the partnership creates a channel-led path into a growing market without attempting to reproduce local distribution infrastructure from scratch. For QBS Software Africa, it adds a managed cybersecurity offering built around broad telemetry and continuous SOC coverage. And for regional partners, the practical question is straightforward: can the arrangement help them deliver stronger security operations while keeping deployment, staffing and service management within reach?