Smallstep, founded in 2016, operates at the intersection of cryptography and enterprise infrastructure. The company provides a Device Identity Platform that secures corporate Wi-Fi, VPNs, SaaS applications, and Kubernetes clusters through automated certificate management and high-assurance device identity. Its technical work spans TLS and certificate management, cryptographic attestation, and authentication and authorization systems.
The company maintains a notable open source footprint with step CLI, a command-line interface for modern certificate management, and step-ca, an open source certificate authority tool. These projects underpin its commercial Device Identity Platform, which delivers an automated certificate management toolchain for securing devices and systems across distributed environments.
Smallstep has raised $26 million across Seed and Series A funding rounds. The firm's technical credibility extends to standards development: it co-developed the ACME Device Attestation protocol alongside Google at the IETF, contributing to the evolution of device identity verification at the protocol level. The company serves industries including corporate IT infrastructure, SaaS, and container orchestration.
