When we sat down with one of the founders of Edera, you quickly realise this isn’t just another security startup. It’s a company built on innovation, grit, and a bold mission to challenge both technology and the status quo of leadership.
We recently had the privilege of sitting down with Emily Long, CEO and Founder of Edera, a groundbreaking cybersecurity startup. Emily shared the inspiring story behind Edera’s founding, the challenges she and her co-founders overcame, and her refreshingly human approach to leadership.
From Inspiration to Launch: The Story of Edera
Edera’s journey began when Emily was working at another software company, Chainguard, alongside her now-cofounder, Ariadne Conill. When Ariadne left to start a new venture with Alex Zenla, the third co-founder of Edera, Emily was curious.
“I called Ariadne and said, ‘Hey, I want to know what you’re doing over there,’” Emily recalls. That led to a 30-minute meeting with Ariadne and Alex that turned into a three-hour deep dive into technology, vision, and the kind of company they wanted to build. Over the next six months, they kept meeting, refining the idea, and eventually decided to co-found Edera.
While Emily wasn’t the creator of the core technology, she deeply understood the problem they were tackling. “It was expanding the problem space in security a bit broader, and I loved the idea of starting a company with two women in security. It’s very rare.”
The Pivotal Moment: From Idea to Reality
Starting a company is daunting enough, but the statistics can be even more discouraging for female founders. Emily shared that less than 2% of funding in this space goes to female-led teams. Despite that, the Edera team pressed forward.
“I have a Post-it note next to my computer that says, ‘No plan B,’” Emily says. “We are going to make this happen.”
A major turning point came just weeks after Edera’s founding, when Emily attended RSA and took her first VC meetings. Not long after, they secured their first institutional check. “It was emotional for all of us because it was like—we’re actually going to get a chance. We defied the odds.”
What Makes Edera Different
Edera is tackling container security in a fundamentally different way. Most vendors in the space operate reactively – they alert you when something goes wrong so you can triage and fix it. Edera, however, goes deeper.
“We solve security at the foundational level,” Emily explains. “We make your infrastructure more secure from the start. You hear a lot about ‘secure by design’- that’s what we are, except we don’t require you to rebuild everything.”
Edera integrates seamlessly, allowing teams to operate as they always have, but with robust security built in. “We will actually stop breaches before they become an issue, instead of just telling you something went wrong.”
Advice to Founders: Tune Out the Noise
When asked what advice she’d give to someone in the early stages of founding a company, Emily was thoughtful and honest.
“For women, especially, try anyway,” she says. “There will be so many people who give you unsolicited advice on why everything won’t work.”
Emily highlights the importance of distinguishing real advice from projections of other people’s fears or biases. “You’ve got to learn to trust your gut and have a circle around you that you know will be honest with you.” She also acknowledges the lack of female mentors in security, which makes the journey even harder. “Just because people haven’t done it doesn’t mean it’s not possible. You have to have a sense of stubbornness, grit, and thick skin.”
Redefining Success: Kindness as a Competitive Advantage
Beyond revenue and growth, Emily is passionate about proving that businesses can succeed without the toxic leadership models often seen in tech.
“There’s a way a lot of companies are built—ivory tower leadership, sometimes tyrannical, sometimes passive-aggressive,” Emily says. “The problem is, it works. But I want to prove that you can be kind, have high expectations, create a sense of community, and still deliver incredible financial returns.”
For Emily, Edera’s success isn’t just about numbers – it’s about showing the industry that there’s another, better way to lead.
In an industry often defined by its hardened edges, Emily Long and Edera are offering something refreshingly different: breakthrough technology, driven by a human-centered mission. With their innovative approach to security and leadership, they aren’t just protecting the infrastructure of today – they’re helping build the more inclusive and thoughtful tech companies of tomorrow.