What Profian does

Profian was a US-headquartered, remote-first confidential computing startup founded in 2021 by former Red Hat security architects Mike Bursell (CEO) and Nathaniel McCallum (CTO). The company commercialized the Enarx open source project, providing a hardware-agnostic WebAssembly runtime that enables applications to run inside Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) across Intel SGX, AMD SEV, and other confidential computing hardware without code changes. Its commercial product, Profian Assure, layered attestation services (Steward) and workload repository infrastructure (Drawbridge) on top of Enarx Keep to offer encrypted, private execution environments for data in use on public cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

The company targeted enterprise customers in regulated industries — primarily financial services, with secondary segments in government, healthcare, and other regulated verticals — addressing use cases such as secure multi-party computation, HIPAA compliance, classified information processing, and protection against insider threats. Its go-to-market combined direct enterprise field sales with a developer-led self-service channel via try.enarx.dev, supported by community engagement through KubeCon, Wasm Day, and open source community relations. Profian held custodian status over Enarx within the Linux Foundation's Confidential Computing Consortium, plus memberships in CNCF (Silver), Bytecode Alliance (founding/sponsor), and Wasm.Builders (founding), and was a member of the Red Hat Technology Partner Ecosystem with Microsoft Azure integration.

The company raised a single $5 million seed round in September 2021 led by Project A Ventures and Illuminate Financial, with angel participation from senior executives at Datadog, Fastly, Bytecode Alliance, and the Linux Foundation. It remained a sub-10-person team throughout its documented life, with revenue not publicly disclosed and no named enterprise customers. By late 2023, the Profian homepage carried a disclaimer that 'Profian is no longer in business,' redirecting visitors to Enarx.dev and the Confidential Computing Consortium — indicating a wind-down or transfer of activities to the open source foundation rather than a commercially scaled entity.

Name

Profian

Legal name

Profian

Website

https://profian.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Closed

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Profian, founded in 2021 by former Red Hat security architects, commercialized the Enarx WebAssembly runtime to deliver hardware-agnostic confidential computing for regulated enterprises in financial services, healthcare, and government. The company ceased independent operations by late 2023.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Raleigh

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Software/Subscription: Appears to follow a software subscription model for enterprise deployments of confidential computing solutions

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Profian provides a confidential computing platform, branded Profian Assure, that sets up encrypted, private Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) on public cloud or on-premises hardware so organizations can protect sensitive data and applications while in use. The platform is built on the open source Enarx project, a hardware-agnostic WebAssembly runtime that supports Intel SGX and AMD SEV environments, and is complemented by open source services for attestation (Steward) and workload management (Drawbridge). Revenue is generated via software subscriptions and enterprise deployments aimed at regulated industries such as financial services, government, and healthcare.

Product overview

Profian is a Confidential Computing platform providing products and services based on the Enarx open source project. The core commercial offering is Profian Assure, an open source solution that encrypts data in use by setting up Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) on any cloud or on-premises hardware. Supporting this are open source projects including Enarx (the runtime framework), Drawbridge (workload repository), and Steward (attestation service), which together provide a complete system for creating encrypted, private environments for sensitive workloads.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Profian Assure Profian Assure is Profian's flagship confidential computing solution that creates encrypted, private environments on public cloud or on-premises hardware to protect both data and applications while in use. It provides attestation services to meet regulatory and compliance standards and builds on the open source Enarx project, of which Profian is the custodian. It is intended for regulated organizations that need to run sensitive workloads in the cloud while meeting audit and compliance requirements.
• Enarx Enarx is an open source framework for running applications inside Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) using a WebAssembly-based runtime that abstracts underlying hardware across Intel SGX and AMD SEV. It enables the same application to run on heterogeneous confidential computing hardware without code changes and is the foundation underlying Profian Assure.
• Steward Steward is an open source attestation service that validates cryptographic measurements from Trusted Execution Environment hardware and issues certificates identifying workloads deployed in Enarx Keeps. It is part of the Profian Assure architecture and supports regulatory and compliance auditing of confidential workloads.
• Drawbridge Drawbridge is an open source attestation-aware repository service for WebAssembly workloads. It stores and releases software to Enarx Keeps only upon successful attestation to the Steward service, ensuring that only verified workloads are deployed into confidential computing environments.

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Red HatcoreTechnology or IntegrationPart of Red Hat's Technology Partner Ecosystem, enabling integration with Red Hat's enterprise open source solutions and distribution channels.
• Confidential Computing ConsortiumcoreTechnology or IntegrationMember of the Confidential Computing Consortium, an industry coalition focused on advancing confidential computing standards and adoption.
• CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation)coreTechnology or IntegrationSilver member of CNCF, participating in the cloud native ecosystem and contributing to cloud native security initiatives.
• Bytecode AlliancecoreTechnology or IntegrationMember and sponsor of the Bytecode Alliance, working on WebAssembly standards and runtime technologies.
• Jim WhitehurstminorOthersSpecial Advisor to Profian, bringing extensive open source and enterprise software experience.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Secret Network: Secret Network is a blockchain that uses WebAssembly-based TEEs (originally Enarx-derived concepts) for confidential smart contracts. It is thematically adjacent to Profian's WebAssembly + TEE focus, though anchored in the blockchain developer ecosystem rather than regulated enterprise.

Direct peers

• Scontain (Scone / Edgeless OS): Scontain delivers SGX-based confidential computing tooling for Kubernetes workloads. It competes in the same niche as Enarx and Profian Assure, particularly with European regulated customers.
• Opaque Systems: Opaque provides a confidential AI and analytics platform built on TEEs and enclaves. It is comparable to Profian's regulated-industry, data-in-use protection positioning, with a stronger emphasis on AI/ML workloads.
• Edgeless Systems: Edgeless Systems builds a Kubernetes-native confidential computing platform (Constellation) using TEEs. Like Profian, it targets regulated workloads and emphasizes attestation, and competes for the same enterprise buyer.
• Anjuna Security: Anjuna provides a confidential computing platform that runs workloads inside hardware TEEs (Intel SGX, AMD SEV, Nvidia H100 CC). It is the closest direct competitor to Profian Assure, addressing the same regulated-enterprise use cases and offering attestation and policy controls.
• Fortanix: Fortanix offers a confidential computing and data security platform combining enclave-based runtime with HSM and key management. It overlaps directly with Profian Assure on the runtime/attestation layer and competes for financial services and regulated enterprise customers.
• Decentriq: Decentriq runs confidential clean rooms on top of TEEs for secure multi-party data collaboration. Comparable to Profian in its use of confidential computing to enable regulated data sharing across organizations.

Broad incumbents

• AWS Nitro Enclaves: AWS's enclave offering isolates sensitive workloads inside EC2 instances. As an incumbent hyperscaler solution, it competes with Profian for regulated workloads running on AWS infrastructure.
• Google Cloud Confidential VMs: Google Cloud's confidential VMs (AMD SEV, SEV-SNP, Intel TDX) provide hardware-isolated compute as a managed cloud service. It overlaps directly with Profian's value proposition of running sensitive workloads in public cloud.
• Microsoft Azure Confidential Computing: Azure's native confidential computing portfolio (Confidential VMs, Confidential Containers, Intel SGX-based VMs) is both a partner surface for Enarx and a broad incumbent that competes for the same enterprise security budgets.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/profianinc
• GitHubgithub.com/enarx
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/profian
• Instagraminstagram.com/getprofian

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Profian