Smallstep

Smallstep is a San Francisco cybersecurity company building the first hardware-backed device identity platform. Founded in 2016 by Mike Malone, it grew out of the widely used open-source step-ca project - a private certificate authority and ACME server - and now sells enterprises a way to bind access to Wi-Fi, VPNs, SaaS apps and SSH to verified hardware. Its co-developed ACME Device Attestation standard, built with Google at the IETF, uses hardware co-processors to stop credential theft, phishing and impersonation. Smallstep has raised $26M and was a 2025 RSAC Innovation Sandbox top-10 finalist.