Lithuania-based VPN provider reaches “Unicorn” status with first ever outside funding
Lithuania-based Nord Security has raised $100 million in its first ever outside capital funding with a financing round led by Novator Ventures, and participation from Burda Principal Investments and General Catalyst. The funding values the company at $1.6 billion.
The money will be used to expand the firm’s already wide product suite, to increase its enterprise footprint, to grow Surfshark (a consumer-oriented security company it merged with in February 2022) and make new hires at all levels. The company operates in 20 countries, and has more than 200 open positions that will expand its 1,700 current headcount.
Nord Security is best known for its NordVPN, which effectively pioneered mass-market VPNs (but is not free). The firm’s product suite also includes a password manager (NordPass), encrypted cloud storage (NordLocker) and network access security (NordLayer). Surfshark’s suite includes a consumer VPN, Antivirus, Alert (online data breach detector), Search (privacy search), and Incogni (data deletion tool for online databases).
Tom Okman, co-CEO, and cofounder, comments, “Ten years ago, we set out to create security and privacy tools which would help create a safer and more peaceful online future; today, millions of people trust our products every day to protect them. We are profitable and have been bootstrapped until today, but in our investors, we have found partners who believe in our mission as much as we do, which will allow us to grow faster and double down on our aspiration to build a radically better internet. We’re also humbled to play a part in helping Lithuania, a fiercely entrepreneurial country, enter a new era of technological innovation.”
Co-CEO Eimantas Sabaliauskas adds, “Right now, we have over 200 open positions and 50% YoY headcount growth with no plans of stopping any time soon. The investment will help us with the expansion of our product suite, acquisitive growth [it acquired AtlasVPN in October 2021], and intensive R&D. And most importantly, our investors share our vision of building a radically better internet. So together, we’ll continue to do exactly that, only with a higher gear.”
The hitherto organic growth of the company has given it a firm foundation, but a lower profile than necessary for the fiercely competitive enterprise market. The new funds could change that. Enterprise customers already include Adobe, Shutterstock and Vinted, and we can expect to see further effort from Nord into the enterprise market in the future.
Nord Security, headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, was founded in 2012 by Eimantas Sabaliauskas (co-CEO), and Tom Okman (co-CEO).
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Kevin Townsend is a Senior Contributor at SecurityWeek. He has been writing about high tech issues since before the birth of Microsoft. For the last 15 years he has specialized in information security; and has had many thousands of articles published in dozens of different magazines – from The Times and the Financial Times to current and long-gone computer magazines.
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