- Slim.AI recently announced it raised $31 million in Series A funding. These are the details.
Slim.AI — a Boston-based startup focused on optimizing and securing cloud-native applications — announced that it has raised a $31 million series A round co-led by Insight Partners and StepStone Group with participation by boldstart Ventures, Decibel Partners, FXP, Knollwood, and TechAviv Founder Partners.
Slim.AI is focused on cloud-native application development, building a developer platform atop the popular DockerSlim open-source project. Co-founded by John Amaral and Kyle Quest in January 2021, Slim.AI provides developers with the necessary tools to ship secure, production-ready containers in an automated, repeatable and transparent way, and without the need for specialized expertise. Plus Slim.AI goes beyond simple container minification—already available via DockerSlim—to deliver a holistic container-based workflow platform for developers working in organizations large or small.
Amaral and Quest are both veterans of cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure. And Amaral is a seasoned cybersecurity entrepreneur and the former head of product for Cisco Cloud Security. Previously, he held product leadership positions at CloudLock, Trustwave, and Vericept. CTO Quest is the creator of several open-source initiatives, including the DockerSlim project. And Quest previously served as chief architect at Cisco CloudLock and has held security leadership roles at Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Trustwave, and Vericept. Last August, the company had announced a board of advisors comprising a group of DevOps and cloud-native industry luminaries.
Slim.AI had closed a $6.6 million seed round in January of 2021 led by boldstart Ventures, Decibel Partners, FXP and TechAviv Founder Partners. And Slim.AI is another in a growing line of developer-first, product-led growth, enterprise SaaS companies to come out of the boldstart portfolio, following on the heels of Snyk (security), Replicated (on-prem infrastructure), and BigID (identification services). They are joining a growing list of DevOps and cloud security companies including Docker, JFrog, and Aqua Security in the Insight Partners portfolio.
KEY QUOTES:
“The world has woken up to the acute need for developers to know exactly what is in their containers before moving them into production and to reduce risk in their software supply chains. Developers and technology leaders alike are beginning to understand the need to optimize images before they go to production, minimizing the attack surface of their applications. The best vulnerability is the one you never ship.”
— John Amaral, CEO and co-founder at Slim.AI
“Slim.AI’s ‘Know Your Container’ workflow was born out of a problem that its founders and many developers experience: too much time is spent on fitting applications to infrastructure. As developers are expected to produce clean code at a fast pace, it is critical to equip them with a software supply chain environment that simultaneously minimizes risk of producing vulnerabilities and maximizes productivity. The DockerSlim open-source product has already proven to be a valuable tool with 300k+ downloads. Slim.AI has an incredible opportunity to build a platform on top of this early, fast-paced adoption to deliver even more value to development teams worldwide.”
— Jon Rosenbaum, managing director at Insight Partners
“We see a tremendous market opportunity for platforms that help enterprises incorporate security into software development rather than bolting it on via a set of reactionary processes once the code is already in production. Slim.AI is positioned at the intersection of developer productivity and container security, and we’re excited about the value they are delivering to dev-first organizations that want to empower developers to consistently ship software that follows best practices.”
— Hunter Somerville, partner at StepStone Group
“Slim.AI is following a proven, product-led growth playbook for dev-first companies in the enterprise security space. They have a compelling security story to share with enterprise technology leadership, and they’re already making great progress in establishing themselves as the team to beat.”
— Geva Solomonovich, a well-known security influencer and member of the Slim.AI advisory board
