Cryptography startups
Companies turning hard cryptographic research into products developers can actually ship.
What counts as Cryptography
Cryptography covers companies turning hard cryptographic research into products developers can actually ship. It is the smallest category on this site and deliberately narrow - work on encryption schemes themselves, rather than the much larger set of companies that apply existing cryptography to security, identity or payments.
The narrowest category on the site
Cryptography here means the primitives, not the applications. That is a deliberate line: a great many companies profiled on this site depend on encryption, but depending on something is not the same as advancing it.
Fully homomorphic encryption, made usable
Zama is the company that defines this hub. It works on fully homomorphic encryption - the long-standing goal of computing on data without decrypting it first - and does so as an open-source company, which matters for a field where trust depends on the work being inspectable.
FHE has been theoretically possible for years and practically unusable for almost as long. The interesting claim in Zama's profile is about the gap between those two states: turning a research result into something a developer can pick up and ship.
Where the applied work lives
If you came here looking for encryption in practice rather than in principle, these hubs carry it:
- Security - data protection, zero trust, identity verification and consumer
privacy, including Sotero on zero trust for data and Atsign on giving users control of their own app data.
- Web3 - the chains, wallets and infrastructure whose entire security model is
cryptographic.
- Fintech - payments and compliance, where encryption is a regulatory
requirement rather than a product.
| Company | What it does | Field |
|---|---|---|
| Zama | Open-source cryptography company building state-of-the-art fully homomorphic encryption tooling. | Homomorphic encryption |
Latest in Cryptography
Frequently asked questions
Why is the Cryptography hub so small?
Because it is reserved for companies working on cryptography itself rather than companies using it. Plenty of startups on this site depend on encryption - identity verification, data protection, wallets - but they are filed under Security, Fintech or Web3, where their actual business sits.
What is fully homomorphic encryption?
An encryption approach that allows computation on data while it stays encrypted, so a party can process information without ever seeing it in the clear. Zama, the company profiled here, builds open-source tooling to make that practical for developers.
Where should I look for security companies instead?
The Security hub. It covers AI guardrails, software supply chain security, identity verification and fraud, data protection and consumer privacy - all applied work that relies on cryptography without researching it.
Do you cover blockchain cryptography here?
No. Companies working on chains, wallets, indexing and decentralised finance are filed under Web3, which is where their commercial story is. This hub is for cryptographic research being turned into shippable tools regardless of whether a blockchain is involved.