European Ai Rising Star Nexos.ai Raises $30m To Unlock Enterprise Ai Adoption

For astir endeavor companies, AI is either a promise that has yet to deliver aliases a information risk. The effort of Lithuania’s astir celebrated entrepreneur duo to lick that conundrum has garnered attraction — and funding.

Just months aft Nexos.ai came retired of stealth pinch an $8 cardinal backing information led by Index Ventures, Nord Security co-founders Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas person closed a €30 cardinal Series A (approximately $35 million) for this caller startup — a a level that helps companies adopt AI devices securely by acting arsenic a middleman betwixt labor and AI systems.

In Okmanas’ view, “the biggest firm information leak” is presently successful nan making, arsenic labor upload delicate accusation to LLMs. Rather than banning AI use, he wants Nexos.ai to enactment arsenic a “Switzerland for LLMs,” serving arsenic a neutral intermediary. By sitting betwixt teams and AI tools, nan level intends to support information nether power without sacrificing nan productivity gains companies want but fearfulness pursuing.

That operation of seasoned founders tackling a captious endeavor problem explains why this caller information was raised truthful soon — pinch Index and Evantic Capital co-leading astatine a €300 cardinal valuation (approximately $350 million), according to a institution spokesperson. Previous backers Creandum and Dig Ventures besides participated, on pinch angel backers, including nan CEOs of Datadog, Klarna, Supercell, and Wix.

Evantic, nan caller task patient launched by erstwhile Sequoia Capital partner Matt Miller, was persistent capable to make nan information hap moreover though Nexos.ai wasn’t fundraising, said Okmanas. He and Sabaliauskas famously bootstrapped their erstwhile businesses, including Nord, nan $3 cardinal cybersecurity company down NordVPN. But they now spot nan value-add from VCs.

In summation to Index’s support, Nexos.ai is now benefiting from Miller’s guidance and his ‘Legends’ network —140 operators who counsel Evantic’s portfolio startups successful speech for a stock of nan fund’s profits. Okmanas said he is some a Legend himself and drafting connected others’ expertise to style nan merchandise — which is wherever nan caller superior will go.

Currently, Nexos’ AI merchandise consists of an AI Workspace interface for labor and an AI Gateway for developers. The gateway acts arsenic a power furniture for security, costs management, and compliance oversight while reducing fragmentation, which Okmanas sees arsenic a cardinal obstruction to AI adoption. The gateway provides a azygous entree constituent to immoderate 200 AI models, and nan institution plans to usage its backing to accelerate its support of backstage models for delicate data.

Okmanas said his squad is presently doing 50 to 60 demo calls a week, but anticipates that accepted businesses will person “a batch of homework” to do to person their boards astir really they want to adopt AI. Nexos.ai could thief them by making deployment easier. But first, nan startup is focusing connected tech-savvy companies that already usage AI daily, arsenic good arsenic companies operating successful regulated industries, which person concerns astir governance and sending delicate information to AI models hosted successful overseas countries.

Okmanas and Sabaliauskas identified nan AI governance spread while overseeing nan portfolio of Tesonet, their institution that builds and invests successful startups. Tesonet portfolio companies are besides among nan customers that Nexos.ai is disclosing, alongside Bulgarian fintech unicorn Payhawk, which besides has an agency successful Vilnius. According to a property release, nan backing will now support description crossed Europe and North America.

For Okmanas, nan ngo is removing barriers to broader AI adoption. While boards statement whether AI tin present existent value, he points to results wrong Tesonet’s ain portfolio: astatine Hostinger, a web hosting provider, an AI adjunct reduced nan request for quality support. Says Okmanas, “That’s why we didn’t request to prosecute 500 group and saved €10 cardinal this twelvemonth alone.”

Despite talking numbers astatine Hostinger, Okmanas declined to disclose really overmuch gross Nexos.ai itself is generating. Instead, he said that by nan clip nan institution celebrates its first anniversary, nan squad will person grown to 100 group — mostly successful Europe, wherever information sovereignty concerns person besides started to unfastened doors for Nexos.ai astatine nationalist institutions, perchance opening up a caller marketplace beyond its endeavor focus.