It can work, as that's exactly what Snowflake has done and it's one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies today.
A good product is more valuable than a partnership.
A good product is more valuable than a partnership.
IIRC MS/Azure is an early Databricks investor and their sales folks were heavily incentivised to sell it. They also pushed Snowflake in the early days until they had a competing product and their relationship status was upgraded to 'it's complicated'.