For most businesses, artificial intelligence is either a promise that has not yet been fulfilled or security risk. Lithuania’s most famous business duo’s attempt to solve this conundrum has garnered attention — and funding.
Just months later Nexos.ai came out of stealth with an $8 million funding round led by Index Ventures, Nord Security co-founders Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas closed a €30 million (about $35 million) Series A for this new startup — a platform that helps companies adopt tools AI with security between workers and technicians.
In Okmanas’ view, “the largest corporate data breach” is currently underway, as employees upload sensitive information to LLM. Instead of banning the use of AI, he wants Nexos.ai to act as a “Switzerland for LLMs”, acting as a neutral mediator. By sitting between AI teams and tools, the platform aims to keep data under control without sacrificing the productivity gains companies want but are afraid to pursue.
That combination of experienced founders facing a critical business problem explains why this new round was raised so soon — with Index and Evantic Capital advocating a valuation of 300 million euros (about $350 million), according to a company spokesperson. Previous backers Creandum and Dig Ventures also participated, along with angel backers including the CEOs of Datadog, Klarna, Supercell and Wix.
Evantic, the new venture firm started by former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Miller, was persistent enough to make the round, even though Nexos.ai it was not a fundraiser, Okmanas said. He and Sabaliauskas famously bootstrapped their previous ventures, including Nord, the $3 billion cyber security company behind NordVPN. But now they see the added value from VCs.
In addition to supporting Index, Nexos.ai he now benefits from Miller’s guidance and his own “Legends” Network. —140 operators who advise Evantic’s portfolio startups in exchange for a share of the fund’s profits. Okmanas said he’s a legend himself and draws on the expertise of others to shape the product — where the new chapter will go.
Nexos’ AI product currently consists of an AI Workspace interface for employees and an AI Portal for developers. The portal acts as a layer of control for security, cost management and compliance oversight, while reducing fragmentation, which Okmanas sees as a key barrier to AI adoption. The portal provides a single point of access to about 200 AI models, and the company plans to use its funding to accelerate its support of private models for sensitive data.
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Okmanas said his team currently makes 50 to 60 demo calls a week, but he expects traditional businesses will have “a lot of work” to do to convince their boards of how they want to adopt AI. Nexos.ai could help them by making development easier. But first, the startup is targeting tech-savvy companies that already use AI every day, as well as companies in regulated industries that have concerns about governance and sending sensitive data to AI models hosted in foreign countries.
Okmanas and Sabaliauskas identified the AI governance gap while overseeing the portfolio of Tesonet, their company that builds and invests in startups. Tesonet holding companies are also among the clients that Nexos.ai reveals, along with Bulgarian fintech unicorn Payhawk, which also has an office in Vilnius. According to a press release, the funding will now support expansion across Europe and North America.
For Okmanas, the mission is to remove barriers to the wider adoption of artificial intelligence. While boards debate whether AI can deliver real value, he points to the results within Tesonet’s portfolio: Hostingera web hosting provider, an artificial intelligence assistant reduced the need for human support. Says Okmanas, “That’s why we didn’t have to hire 500 people and saved 10 million euros this year alone.”
Despite Hostinger’s talking numbers, Okmanas declined to reveal how much revenue Nexos.ai itself generates. Instead, he said that by the time the company celebrates its first anniversary, the team will have grown to 100 people — mostly in Europe, where data sovereignty concerns have also begun to open doors for Nexos.ai in public organizations, potentially opening up a new market beyond the company’s focus.
