Investment Led by M12 Accelerates Development of Industry-First Workload Isolation Technology, Empowering Developers to Build with Speed While Eliminating Security Trade-offs and Reducing Cloud Costs
SEATTLE, Feb. 25, 2025 — Today’s cloud infrastructure forces organizations to choose between security and efficiency. Containerized workloads share resources and kernels, creating inherent security vulnerabilities that attackers exploit through privilege escalation and lateral movement. Traditional solutions either compromise performance or require complex configuration changes, leaving platform teams frustrated and security teams alarmed. This problem is especially prevalent in AI workloads, where shared GPU resources amplify security risks. Edera solves these challenges by making workload isolation a reality for the first time.
Edera, the pioneer of strong workload isolation technology, announced $15 million in Series A funding led by M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, with participation from Mantis VC and In-Q-Tel (IQT). Existing investors Eniac Ventures, 645 Ventures, FPV Ventures, Precursor Ventures, and Rosecliff Ventures also participated in the round.
This investment, arriving just three months after Edera’s $5 million seed round, brings total funding to $20 million, validating the company’s breakthrough solution, Edera Protect, which delivers cloud-native isolation making containers secure by default across all workloads. This round will fund product expansion to include support for AI infrastructure. By embedding security at the architectural level, Edera enables developers to maintain their existing workflows while automatically ensuring workload isolation and protection from the start.
“This funding accelerates our mission to empower engineers to develop with speed and confidence,” said Emily Long, CEO and Co-Founder of Edera. “We’re eliminating the traditional tension between development velocity and security by making isolation intrinsic to the infrastructure. Platform teams can focus on creating value while knowing their workloads are secure from the start – no workflow changes required, no security burden post-deployment, just native security that scales with their applications.”
“Workload security requires being closer to the hardware than the attacker,” said Tyler Shields, Principal Analyst, Risk & Vulnerability Management at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Edera’s isolation capabilities provide protection at a technical layer low enough to stop lateral movement, protecting the container and workload sanctity. Workload security increases in importance as GPU and AI become more prevalent. Edera is well positioned to secure these modern systems.”
Introducing Edera Protect AI: Securing the Foundation of AI Infrastructure
Alongside the funding, Edera launched Edera Protect AI, the industry’s first secure-by-design solution that automates GPU configuration while securing AI infrastructure. Recent vulnerabilities discovered in NVIDIA’s container toolkit highlight the critical need for secure GPU isolation in AI environments. Edera AI automatically configures and isolates GPUs, eliminating costly manual configuration while protecting AI models from compromises that could pose significant risks to both enterprise security and society at large.
“AI is transforming industries at an unprecedented pace, but without secure, sovereign and sustainable infrastructure, its full potential can’t be realised,” said Nick Jones, Head of Engineering at Nscale. “As AI adoption accelerates, protecting sensitive workloads from emerging threats is no longer optional – it’s imperative. Edera’s advanced isolation technology provides a crucial layer of protection, preventing lateral movement and ensuring data integrity. In a world where GPU-powered AI is becoming the backbone of innovation, robust security is the foundation of a resilient and trustworthy AI ecosystem.”
Edera significantly reduces cloud computing costs by enabling enterprises to consolidate workloads that traditionally require separate clusters or specialized hardware – including GPU workloads – onto standard cloud instances while maintaining strict isolation. The multi-cloud compatibility further reduces costs by enabling workload portability and eliminating vendor lock-in, while its proven performance benchmarks show it can be more efficient than standard Docker deployments for specific workloads.
“Edera’s technology delivers true workload isolation while maintaining native container-like performance in today’s multi-tenant cloud environments,” said Alex Zenla, CTO and Co-Founder of Edera. “We provide platform teams with robust isolation boundaries that enhance security without requiring changes to existing infrastructure or sacrificing the speed and agility that businesses depend on. This breakthrough allows organizations to finally achieve both maximum security and peak performance in their cloud operations.”
“Secure, isolated workloads are a bigger priority than ever for the industry. We are encouraged to see innovative approaches like Edera and look forward to collaborating on how to bring this critical technology to the ecosystem,” said Mandy Andress, CISO at Elastic.
The team is expanding its leadership bench and brought on industry veteran Kaylin Trychon as Chief Marketing Officer, formerly of Google and Chainguard. As the first marketing hire at Chainguard, Trychon was responsible for building the brand and marketing team that led the company to a $1.1 billion valuation after just three years.
Edera is growing! Join the mission to make secure computing simple. Check out the job openings at Edera today or meet with the team in person at one of their upcoming events.
About Edera
Edera is transforming cloud security by making true workload isolation a reality for the first time. Edera Protect builds security into the foundation of the infrastructure, allowing developers to maintain their preferred tools and processes while automatically preventing attacks from spreading between workloads. Organizations can now achieve secure multi-tenancy for Kubernetes and AI workloads without sacrificing development speed or increasing cloud costs. Female-founded and headquartered in Seattle, Edera is built on the principle that diverse perspectives and balanced teams create better technology. For more information, visit https://edera.dev
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