CRN looks at 10 Kubernetes startups changing the game in the container technology market. Market research firm SkyQuest Technology Group calls Kubernetes the second-fastest-growing project in the history of open-source software after Linux.

Kubernetes Everywhere

Ever since Google in 2014 released Kubernetes as an open-source version of its Borg technology, it has become nearly ubiquitous in cloud and software development. Kubernetes, or K8s for short, automates the operational tasks of container management with built-in commands for deploying applications, rolling out changes, scaling them up and down as needed, monitoring applications and other tasks.

As such, Kubernetes has become a big business. Market research firm SkyQuest Technology Group calls Kubernetes the second-fastest-growing project in the history of open-source software after Linux.

SkyQuest this year estimated that the total market for Kubernetes technology will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 23.4 percent between 2024 and 2031 to reach $9.7 billion by 2031, up from $1.8 billion in 2023.

[Related: The 10 Hottest Cloud Computing Startups Of 2024 (So Far)]

Given that kind of growth, and the need for tools to help developers, it is no surprise that the Kubernetes market has become a magnet for startups that either develop technology to manage Kubernetes-based containers in general or make the technology a part of a wider range of tools.

CRN looks at 10 startups that in the past couple of years have brought their technology skills to this market.

AccuKnox

Co-Founder, CEO: Nat Natraj

Headquarters: Menlo Park, Calif.

AccuKnox develops a zero-trust runtime Kubernetes security platform that leverages an identity-driven approach. Its Kubernetes security protects workloads across cloud, edge, IoT and 5G platforms. The company is also the founding team behind the open-source runtime security enforcement system KubeArmor that leverages Linux Security Module. The company’s technology is anchored on patented innovations in container security, unsupervised learning and data provenance developed at the nonprofit SRI.

Cast AI

Founder, CEO: Yuri Frayman

Headquarters: Miami

Cast AI builds a Kubernetes automation platform the company said can cut Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform customers’ cloud costs by over 50 percent. The technology achieves that cost savings by continuously tracking and optimizing clusters using such features as automated scaling, provisioning, bin packing and more, according to the company. Kubernetes costs are viewed in a single place in real time broken down by cluster, workloads, labels and more. It also automatically adjusts workloads’ requests and limits based on changing requirements to improve the cost-performance ratio.

Cast AI late last year raised a Series B round of funding worth $35 million, bringing total funding in the company to $73 million.

Edgeless Systems

Co-Founder, CEO: Felix Schuster

Headquarters: Bochum, Germany

Edgeless Systems develops confidential computing technology that keeps data encrypted even while it is being processed while ensuring the verifiable integrity of workloads. This is applied to encryption keys to single containers to entire deployments. The company’s Constellation technology isolates entire Kubernetes clusters from the overall infrastructure, ensuring all data in the cluster remains encrypted at rest, in transit and while it is being processed. This helps support the migration of sensitive workloads to the cloud by cutting the chance of data breaches and addressing regulatory requirements like GDPR.

Kubo Labs

President, CTO: Alain Regnier

Headquarters: Paris

Kubo Labs develops software focused on the detection and resolution of problems related to Kubernetes environments. It automatically detects configuration, security, health and best practice issues with an eye toward detecting emerging issues before they impact applications. The company’s KuboScore technology runs multiple real-life scenarios on clusters to check for issues that could impact security or performance.

Namla

Co-Founder, CEO: Rabah Guedrez

Headquarters: Paris

Namla has developed a cloud-native orchestration technology built on Kubernetes and SD-WAN that seamlessly connects to any cloud to help deploy applications from the cloud to the edge while providing visibility into the performance of those applications and related networking. That technology aims to help simplify the setup and management of large-scale distributed edge devices. It features a secure overlay to help protect data and applications.

RapidFort

Founder, CEO: Mehran Farimani

Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.

RapidFort is a cloud-native cybersecurity company aimed at optimizing and securing modern cloud infrastructures. The company’s RapidFort Runtime Protection toolset provides security teams with the ability to find and automatically mitigate vulnerabilities. It offers build-time CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery and deployment) tools and runtime Kubernetes features working in unison to help businesses reduce their software attack surface throughout the software development life cycle and help increase cooperation between security and development teams.

ScaleOps

Founder, CEO: Rose Penhasi

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel

ScaleOps develops automated Kubernetes resource optimization technology the company said can reduce Kubernetes costs by up to 80 percent. It does so by automatically adjusting nodes and pods in real time to match demand as a way to help eliminate overprovisioned and underprovisioned workloads. It integrates seamlessly with any GitOps workflow and features proactive and reactive mitigation of issues caused by unexpected bursts and stressed nodes to help ensure stability and performance.

StackBlitz

CEO: Eric Simons

Headquarters: San Francisco

StackBlitz lets cloud developers run code in a secure browser-based node environment without the need for virtual machines. The company’s StackBlitz Enterprise offering, which is hosted in a single Kubernetes cluster regardless of usage, provides enterprise-grade security and hosting options, with one-click instant environments and the ability to move in and out of different branches, repositories and code bases without disrupting local development. StackBlitz in 2022 raised $7.9 million in seed funding.

Syself

CEO: Sven Batista Steinbach

Headquarters: Eschborn, Germany

Syself develops technologies to help streamline cloud operations, bolster system reliability and facilitate the scalable growth of digital infrastructures. The company’s Syself Autopilot is a simplified multi-cloud Kubernetes management platform based on Cluster API, which the company said can create and upgrade production-ready clusters with a single command. It is a hardened platform that is preconfigured for optimal performance and gets regular updates every two to three weeks.

Zesty

CEO: Maxim Melamedov

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel

Zesty develops an automated cloud cost optimization technology to help efficiently allocate resources to application demand, with offerings for compute, database, storage and containers. The company’s Zesty Disk for K8s works with Kubernetes containers running native AWS EBS volumes to automatically expand or shrink volumes as needed, all while reducing storage costs by up to 70 percent, the company said. Zesty Disk works for any Kubernetes workload as it scales from simple tasks to workloads requiring intense and dynamic storage.