BATON ROUGE, La., Nov. 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Minimus, the leader in hardened container images, announced today that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has included Minimus on its 2025 Stellar Startups list in the Security category. This prestigious list highlights fast-rising technology vendors that are driving innovation and fostering growth in the IT channel with groundbreaking products.
Companies recognized as Stellar Startups must be six years old or younger, and they are selected across categories that include artificial intelligence, application development/DevOps, big data, business applications, cloud, data center, Internet of Things (IoT), networking/unified communications, security and storage.
Minimus eliminates the endless treadmill of detecting and remediating cloud software vulnerabilities by preventing them from ever existing. The company provides secure, minimal container and VM images rebuilt daily from upstream sources. By stripping away unnecessary components and including only what is needed to run each application, Minimus reduces vulnerabilities by over 97% and delivers images that work in existing DevSecOps pipelines. Founded by the team behind Twistlock, Minimus serves security, DevOps, and compliance teams in highly regulated and fast-moving environments.
Each technology vendor featured on the CRN 2025 Stellar Startups list is distinguished by its commitment to innovation and to delivering cutting-edge offerings that help solution providers stand out in today's fast-changing IT landscape.
This annual list serves as an invaluable resource for solution providers making business-critical strategic decisions and exploring new technologies and services to add their portfolios to give them a competitive advantage and drive success.
"We're excited to recognize the forward-thinking companies featured on this year's Stellar Startups list," said Jennifer Follett, Vice President, U.S. Content, and Executive Editor at CRN, The Channel Company. "This honor highlights each organization's commitment to tackling IT channel challenges, driving innovation through cutting-edge technologies and empowering partner success. We can't wait to see how they continue to shape the future of the industry."
"We are honored to receive this recognition, which further validates the value our solution delivers to our partners and customers," said John Morello, CTO and Co-Founder of Minimus. "We are changing container security by ensuring that vulnerabilities are never introduced in the first place, radically reducing risk for organizations. Being recognized by CRN solidifies our team's hard work and dedication to deliver the next generation of security for cloud native applications."
The CRN 2025 Stellar Startups list will be featured online at CRN.com/StellarStartups beginning Nov. 10, 2025.
About Minimus
Founded in October 2022 by Ben Bernstein, Dima Stopel, and John Morello, Minimus radically reduces cloud software vulnerabilities. As the pioneers of container security with Twistlock and author of NIST SP 800-190, Minimus solves the endless treadmill of cloud software vulnerabilities by simply preventing 97% of them from ever existing.
Minimus builds images from scratch, directly from upstream project sources, with only the minimal software needed to run the app, dramatically reducing their attack surface. Minimus images are drop-in replacements for the apps organizations are already using and are deployed with single line configuration file changes, providing nearly instant time to value. Minimus eliminates time consuming and low value remediation work for devs, is easy for ops to deploy and manage using their existing tools, and provides security with remarkably clear risk reduction. Minimus raised a $51M seed round from YL Ventures and Mayfield.
About The Channel Company
The Channel Company (TCC) is the global leader in channel growth for the world's top technology brands. We accelerate success across strategic channels for tech vendors, solution providers and end users with premier media brands, integrated marketing and event services, strategic consulting, and exclusive market and audience insights. TCC is a portfolio company of investment funds managed by EagleTree Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm. For more information, visit thechannelco.com.
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