For many large organizations, AI remains either an unfulfilled promise or a potential security threat. The renowned entrepreneurial pair from Lithuania has drawn significant interest—and investment—for their attempt to address this challenge.
Shortly after Nexos.ai emerged from stealth mode with an $8 million investment led by Index Ventures, Nord Security’s co-founders Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas have secured a €30 million Series A round (about $35 million) for their new venture. This platform is designed to help businesses safely integrate AI tools by serving as an intermediary between staff and AI technologies.
According to Okmanas, a major corporate data breach is looming as employees continue to share confidential data with LLMs. Rather than prohibiting AI, he envisions Nexos.ai as a neutral “Switzerland for LLMs,” acting as an impartial go-between. By positioning itself between teams and AI applications, the platform seeks to maintain data security while still enabling the productivity improvements that organizations desire but are hesitant to pursue.
The combination of experienced founders and a pressing enterprise issue explains the rapid fundraising—Index and Evantic Capital co-led the round at a €300 million valuation (roughly $350 million), according to a company representative. Previous investors Creandum and Dig Ventures joined in, alongside angel investors such as the CEOs of Datadog, Klarna, Supercell, and Wix.
Evantic, a new venture capital firm started by former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Miller, was determined to make the investment happen even though Nexos.ai was not actively seeking funds, Okmanas said. He and Sabaliauskas are well known for self-funding their earlier ventures, including Nord, the $3 billion cybersecurity business behind NordVPN. Now, however, they recognize the strategic benefits that venture capital can offer.
Alongside Index’s backing, Nexos.ai is now also drawing on Miller’s expertise and his ‘Legends’ network—a group of 140 operators who advise Evantic’s portfolio companies in return for a share of the fund’s profits. Okmanas noted that he is both a Legend himself and is leveraging the knowledge of others to refine the product, which is where the new investment will be directed.
At present, Nexos’ AI offering features an AI Workspace for employees and an AI Gateway for developers. The gateway provides a security, cost, and compliance management layer, helping to reduce fragmentation—a major obstacle to AI adoption, according to Okmanas. It offers unified access to around 200 AI models, and the company intends to use the new funding to expand support for private models handling sensitive information.
Okmanas shared that his team is currently conducting 50 to 60 product demos each week, but expects that traditional companies will need to do significant groundwork to persuade their boards about AI adoption. Nexos.ai aims to simplify this process, but its initial focus is on tech-forward businesses already using AI regularly, as well as those in regulated sectors concerned about compliance and data transfer to AI models hosted abroad.
Okmanas and Sabaliauskas recognized the need for better AI governance while managing Tesonet’s portfolio, their firm that develops and invests in startups. Tesonet’s portfolio companies are among Nexos.ai’s disclosed clients, along with Bulgarian fintech unicorn Payhawk, which also operates in Vilnius. The press release notes that the new funding will support expansion throughout Europe and North America.
For Okmanas, the goal is to eliminate obstacles to widespread AI use. While company boards debate AI’s true value, he points to results within Tesonet’s own businesses: at Hostinger, a web hosting company, an AI assistant reduced the need for human support staff. “That’s why we didn’t have to hire 500 people and saved €10 million this year alone,” Okmanas said.
Although Okmanas discussed Hostinger’s figures, he declined to reveal Nexos.ai’s own revenue. He did mention, however, that by the company’s first anniversary, the team is expected to reach 100 members—primarily in Europe, where concerns about data sovereignty are also opening opportunities for Nexos.ai with public sector organizations, potentially expanding its reach beyond just enterprises.
The headline of this article has been updated for accuracy.
