Nord Safety began as an obscure, bootstrapped firm in part of the world the place tech champions are uncommon: Lithuania.
Nevertheless it didn’t take lengthy for it to develop into mainstream with its area of interest (and typically costly) cyber safety and digital non-public community (VPN) merchandise.
Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas noticed this chance in 2012 whereas pursuing careers in IT and determined it was price exploring.
Nord utilized easy logic to assist it develop: Individuals rely on the web for every thing, which suggests the necessity for on-line safety will solely enhance with time. Certainly, it did—Nord discovered an enormous market amongst privacy-hungry web surfers.
Okmanas admits that when the corporate was based, “no one cared” exterior of some tech corporations that took cybersecurity severely.
As they continued constructing Nord, the use instances and demand grew. That additionally meant the founding duo needed to develop into adept at extra than simply engineering.
“I’ve now had to learn [about] finance, the legal world, corporate governance, and then how to run teams and companies,” Okmanas informed Fortune final 12 months.
Finest identified for its VPN software program, Nord permits customers to make use of the Web whereas defending their knowledge and IP addresses. Meaning extra privateness for the common consumer when shopping the net—however the expertise can be extremely controversial.
VPNs can be utilized to avoid authorities restrictions on the net and have been attacked by Hollywood movie studios for his or her use in piracy and copyright infringement.
However Lithuania-based Nord isn’t slowed down by these authorized and moral issues. It focuses on bolstering its major use case of securely utilizing the net. The corporate’s servers don’t log consumer knowledge—which is a part of the privateness spiel. It has argued that advert nauseum, and informed Fortune that folks utilizing VPN solely to entry blocked or unavailable streaming providers is “outdated.”
Okmanas says that Nord’s instruments are not often used for unlawful or wrongful functions. The corporate additionally has programs in place to stop safety breaches and different on-line threats.
“Our goal is really to connect as much people as possible to this Nord cloud network, where people could use it in a very safe way,” he mentioned.
The VPN world and extra
The broad strokes of Nord’s progress are exceptional: in 2022, 10 years after its founding, it achieved unicorn standing, has over 15 million customers worldwide, and is one in all Lithuania’s most well-known corporations (Vinted is one other one).
Okmanas mentioned Nord has seen “tremendous growth” through the years. In September 2023, the corporate raised $100 million at a $3 billion valuation, practically double the quantity it raised when it turned a unicorn a 12 months earlier.
The corporate has been out procuring to assist with its growth. It introduced a merger with Surfshark in 2022 and bought competitor IronWall this 12 months, serving to Nord develop its clout in cybersecurity and past. Most of Nord’s consumer base is centered within the U.S. and spans a large age vary, whereas the remainder of its prospects are a combined bag of common web customers and small and medium-sized companies.
Nord has made its presence felt—it’s common to come across its adverts whereas listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube or TikTok video (its VPN was noticed being utilized by rapper Drake, Bloomberg reported). Okmanas says it is a deliberate effort to teach extra folks on Nord’s on-line instruments. That’s simply one of many some ways the corporate spends to get new prospects on board as on-line threats proceed to loom.
“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars for our customer acquisition, and it works. Users see the value, and we’re very happy,” Okmanas mentioned.
Nord’s subsequent steps
Nord has one other constructing arising in Vilnius because it continues to broaden its enterprise. For corporations of a sufficiently big scale as Nord, an IPO looks like the pure subsequent step (at the very least that’s what Airbnb and Uber did, and it’s one of many avenues corporations are lured to).
However Nord doesn’t see it that manner. Their purpose is IPO readiness however not essentially to go public instantly, because it’s a great barometer of the place the corporate stands.
“We have big ambitions but don’t need that to do an IPO,” Okmanas mentioned. Nord could have began small, but it surely has been worthwhile on a money stream foundation because the starting. It turned EBITDA-positive final 12 months.
He mentioned Nord is beneath no deadline however needs to arrange it in order that it’s prepared for an IPO on the “press of a button.”
“But for sure, we don’t need it, and we won’t do it in the next six months or a year,” the co-CEO mentioned.
“We’re in a very lucky position where we’re growing extremely fast, and we’re very profitable.”
A model of this story was initially printed on Fortune.com on Sep. 30, 2024.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
