Container startup Slim.AI Inc. has raised $31 million in a new round of funding as it embarks on a quest to help developers secure their cloud-native applications.

Today’s Series A round was co-led by Insight Partners and StepStone Group, along with participation from Knollwood.

Slim.AI has built a platform atop the open-source DockerSlim project that aims to provide developers with the tools they need to ship secure and production-ready application containers in an automated, repeatable and transparent way. To do that, it has created a holistic, container-based workflow that guides developers every step of the way.

Containers are used to host the components of flexible, modern applications that can run on any computing infrastructure without changes.

Slim.AI says its “Know Your Container” workflow system is designed to eliminate the time it takes for developers to fit each application to the infrastructure it’s hosted on. It can be thought of as a software supply chain environment that helps to minimize the risk of shipping code with vulnerabilities, while improving developer productivity.

Slim.AI was co-founded by its Chief Executive John Amaral and Chief Technology Officer Kyle Quest, who have a strong pedigree in the cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure fields. Amaral made his name as a former head of product for cloud security at Cisco Systems Inc., while Quest is the creator of the DockerSlim project and has previously held security roles at Microsoft Corp. and CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.

Amaral said developers have an acute need to know exactly what is inside the containers they build before they ship them into production. “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,” he explained.

Slim.AI’s investors say they’re excited about its prospects, noting that a tremendous market opportunity exists for anyone who can incorporate security into software development, as opposed to bolting it on once the code has been written.

“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,” said StepStone Group Partner Hunter Somerville.

Image: Slim.AI