Echo Acquires Minimus to Give its OS a New Home Within Echo's Hardened Software Ecosystem

Acquisition expands Echo's OS coverage and integrations while giving Minimus customers a seamless path forward as the company winds down.

NEW YORK, Aug. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Echo, the secure-by-default software infrastructure company, today announced it has acquired key assets from Minimus following the company's decision to wind down operations. Minimus' underlying technological work is strategically valuable to Echo's software portfolio so the acquisition gives that technology a new home and gives Minimus customers an easy path forward without compromising the security or continuity of their software infrastructure. The move also reflects a broader shift underway in software supply chain security.

"Minimus built meaningful technology around a problem we both believe is fundamental: organizations shouldn't have to inherit unnecessary security risk simply because they depend on open source software," said Eilon Elhadad, CEO and co-founder of Echo. "When it became clear that Minimus was going to close, we saw an opportunity to make sure that work didn't disappear. We're bringing the best of what they built into Echo, while giving their customers a secure and straightforward path forward."

The market for secure-by-default artifacts started as a crowded space with companies taking different approaches to hardened open-source software, but is now consolidating around two remaining players: Echo and Chainguard. The acquisition of Minimus assets strengthens Echo's position in this next phase of the market, expanding its user base and the breadth of its platform.

Minimus built integrations with legacy security vendors that will now complement Echo's existing ecosystem. Echo plans to build on this work to make its artifacts recognizable across an even broader range of vulnerability scanners and security tools. Echo rebuilds open source software from source to deliver hardened software artifacts without requiring organizations to fundamentally change how they develop and deploy applications. Minimus's OS technology expands that foundation across additional Linux distributions, enabling Echo to become the first truly distro-agnostic approach to hardened software.

Echo uses proprietary AI agents throughout its software factory to investigate vulnerabilities, develop and validate patches, and continuously maintain hardened open source software. The acquisition adds Minimus's technology and relevant technical data to that foundation, giving Echo additional inputs to improve the agents that power its automated research and remediation processes.

"When we made the decision to end operations, our priority was finding the right home for the technology we built and, most importantly, the right path forward for our customers," said Ben Bernstein, co-founder and CEO of Minimus. "Echo shares our belief that software should be secure by default, and has built the platform and engineering capabilities to take that vision even further. We're confident that our technology and customers are in the right hands."

The acquisition comes as enterprises increasingly look to address software supply chain risk at its source rather than adding more downstream detection. Echo provides hardened container images, libraries, VMs, OS packages, Helm charts, and other open-source artifacts designed as secure-by-default replacements for their vulnerable upstream alternatives.

About Echo

Echo is creating the trusted source for agentic-ready software. Rather than scanning for vulnerabilities after they've entered an environment, Echo replaces the supply itself – providing continuously vetted, hardened, and maintained versions of the open-source containers, libraries, VMs, and OS packages organizations already rely on. Every artifact Echo delivers is screened for malicious code, patched against known vulnerabilities, and shipped as a drop-in replacement for what teams would otherwise pull directly from public registries. Learn more at echo.ai.

SOURCE Echo Software Inc.