Canalys Managed BDR Leadership Matrix 2025 – executive summary

Six vendors have been crowned Champions in the 2025 Canalys Managed BDR Leadership Matrix:

• Acronis

• ConnectWise (Axcient)

• Dropsuite

• Kaseya (Datto)

• Keepit

• N-able (Cove)

Three of these vendors, Acronis, Kaseya (Datto) and N-able (Cove), retained their Champion status from the previous edition of the Canalys BDR Channel Leadership Matrix.

Canalys defines four categories of partners in the Leadership Matrix

• Contenders (those with high ratings based on channel performance, but declining or flat on last year).

• Scalers (those making improvements in partner sentiment but yet to achieve the highest levels of consistency in channel excellence).

• Foundation vendors, which have the lowest ratings and have also suffered a deterioration in partner sentiment over the last 12 months.

This report defines backup and disaster recovery as technology (hardware or software) that creates exact copies of data across one or multiple platforms and/or applications for the purposes of restoration in the event of loss, theft or encryption.

Backup and disaster recovery are key elements of building MSP platform plays

Backup and disaster recovery products have taken on greater importance in a time of ransomware growth, cyber-insurance, regulation and increasingly complex SaaS technology stacks, and MSPs are on the frontline of this customer struggle. These vendors combine ease of use and delivery with a more MSP-focused mindset. Enterprise backup and storage vendors have found it hard to address the needs of MSPs from technology, pricing or go-to-market standpoints. Therefore, it is important to view vendors through an MSP-centric lens and rate their capabilities along these defined lines.

Looking at the moves of many of the vendors in this matrix, a pattern has emerged. Acquiring a backup vendor allows vendors of other products, such as cybersecurity and remote monitoring and management (RMM), to build their MSP platform positions. In a managed services economy that will be worth US$595 billion to channel partners by the end of 2025, investors are acutely aware of the need to simplify the way partners serve their customers.

NinjaOne acquired Dropsuite in 2025, ConnectWise acquired Axcient in 2024 and, going back further, we can see two other RMM vendors (Kaseya and N-able) also acquired their BDR products and have used them to increase their total addressable markets and their potential valuations. It will be interesting to see what happens to other vendors, such as Druva or Keepit, in the coming year or two.

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