We've sat in your seat
Most of our team came from running IT or security at companies just like yours. We know what 's critical, what's a distraction, and what auditors actually check.
For founders, seed → Series C
IT that grows up with you. Without growing up too fast.
You don't need an enterprise IT department. You need to look like one when investors run diligence. We give you the IT, security, and identity foundations that scale from 5 employees to 500 — without ever doing a forklift upgrade.
By the numbers
5 → 500
employees, same partner
11 wks
fastest SOC 2 Type II
Day 0
audit-ready posture from day one
0
startup clients lost to a "real MSP"
Why we're a fit
We've done this. Many times.
Fundraising-aware posture
We know what Sequoia, a16z, Founders Fund, GV, and Tiger ask for in IT diligence. We pre-build it so you never scramble during a round.
Engineer-first help desk
Your team works in GitHub, AWS, Linear, Slack. So do we. No "have you tried Outlook in safe mode" energy.
No long contracts
30-day notice. Always. Your runway is unpredictable enough already.
Pricing that flexes
Pay per active user, per month. Headcount cuts? Bill drops next cycle. No minimums for early stage.
SOC 2 muscle memory
40+ SOC 2 Type II programs delivered. The fastest in 11 weeks. We know exactly which controls to wire first.
Their words, not ours
What clients in your shoes have said.
"They got us SOC 2 Type II in 11 weeks for less than what our previous "compliance partner" charged for a checklist."
"When our Series B partner asked about IT, our deal team said "ask Athena directly." That's how confident we were."
"We added 60 people in 90 days. Every one had a laptop on day one. Every one was offboarded cleanly when contracts ended."
Typical scope
What we usually run for clients like you.
Not a fixed package — a starting point. We tailor every engagement.
Day-one IT
- Identity (Okta / Google / Entra) deployed clean
- M365 or Google Workspace tenant baseline
- Zero-touch laptop deployment
- MDM (Kandji / Jamf / Intune) on every device
- Slack / Teams / Linear / GitHub identity-bound
Founders' IT package
- White-glove support for founders / leadership
- Personal device-bring-along program
- Travel-ready posture (eSIM, VPN, hardware tokens)
- Secure notes & shared password vaulting
- Acquisition-ready data handling
Audit-ready security
- SOC 2 Type II in 90–120 days
- Drata / Vanta / Secureframe wired correctly
- Quarterly phishing sims + training cadence
- Vendor / 3rd-party tracker
- IR retainer with named responders
24/7 help desk
- <30 min human first response
- Slack-native, GitHub-fluent engineers
- Follow-the-sun across SF, Dublin, Singapore
- No tier-1, no scripts, no chatbots
- Published SLAs with credits
Cloud & dev tooling
- AWS / Azure / GCP landing zones
- CI/CD identity & secrets management
- GitHub / GitLab governance baseline
- Cost monitoring + monthly FinOps review
- Production observability and on-call
Fundraising support
- IT diligence prep before each round
- Customer security questionnaire library
- DPA / data-flow documentation
- Auditor & regulator liaison on call
- M&A IT diligence (buy + sell side)
Common questions
Top questions from startups.
Don't see yours? Ask us anything — we answer real emails personally.
We're 8 people. Are we too small?
No. Our smallest engagement is 8 people. We have a starter package designed for early-stage that scales to your Series A footprint without re-platforming.
We're not ready for SOC 2 yet — is that OK?
Yes. Most clients start with managed IT and add the SOC 2 program when an enterprise customer or investor asks for it. The foundation we build is SOC 2-ready from day one.
What does pricing look like for a startup?
Per-active-user. Typical fully-managed pricing for a 30-person startup lands in the US$3,500–6,500 / month range, depending on scope. SOC 2 programs are scoped separately as a fixed-price project.
Can you handle our distributed team?
Yes — most of our startup clients are remote-first. We ship laptops to home addresses, support across time zones, and run identity / MDM in a way that doesn't depend on a physical office.
What if we get acquired?
We've handled 40+ acquisitions. We'll prepare your data room, run sell-side diligence, and walk your acquirer's IT team through the environment. Your transition will look professional.
Worth a 30-minute conversation
Let's see if we'd be a great fit for your startups.
A discovery call. A written assessment of your top 3 risks. Yours to keep, even if we never work together.