Spyderco is an American cutlery company based in Golden, Colorado, producing knives and knife sharpeners.

Spyderco pioneered many features that are now common in folding knives, including the pocket clip, serrations, and the opening hole.

[1] [failed verification] Spyderco has collaborated with 30 custom knife makers, athletes, and self-defense instructors for designs and innovated the usage of 20 different blade materials.

The first product Spyderco produced was the Portable Hand in 1976, this "spider-shaped device", was a series of angles, ball joints and alligator clips that helped people such as jewelers and hobbyists to work with small parts.

Spyderco's founder, Sal Glesser, and his wife Gail, converted an old bread delivery truck into a motorhome and traveled to shows.

[12] A large part of the firm's knife production is outsourced to foreign contractors in countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Italy, and China, [13] though many of their flagship knives are made in the US.

Spyderco knives are popular with many markets including private citizens, fire and rescue personnel and law enforcement officers.

[11] For his many influences in tactical knife design (most notably the pocket clip, serrations, and opening hole) and many collaborations with custom knife makers, Spyderco's President, Sal Glesser, was inducted into the Blade magazine Cutlery Hall of Fame at the 2000 Blade Show in Atlanta, Georgia.

[16] The Mule Team Project offers end users fixed-blade knife in various steels for the performance testing.

8Cr13MoV, a Chinese stainless steel tempered at the RC56 to RC58 range and used in the Tenacious, Persistence, Ambitious, Resilience, Grasshopper, Kiwi3 and Byrd lines of knives.

AUS-10, a Japanese stainless steel series made by Aichi with the same carbon content as 440C but with slightly less chromium.

The low level of toughness means that it can only be hardened to around 56 RC, causing the edge-holding performance to be diminished.

H-1, a steel which is well suited for marine applications, because it substitutes nitrogen for carbon and thus is completely rust-proof in any normal environment such as saltwater exposure, though can still oxidize if exposed to extreme heat and chemical attack.

[20] MBS-26, a Japanese [stainless] steel, very fine grained with high corrosion resistance used in the Catcherman and in most kitchen knives by Spyderco.

ZDP-189, a Japanese powdered super-steel made by Hitachi, hardened to RC 62–67, with very high carbide volume.

Through the years, Spyderco has collaborated with numerous custom knife makers in the design of various models.