North Security began as an obscure and amortized company in a part of the world where technology champions are rare: Lithuania.
But it did not take long for it to become common with its cybersecurity and virtual (VPN) (and sometimes expensive) products.
Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas saw this opportunity in 2012 while pursuing careers and decided that it was worth exploring.
North has applied a simple logic to help him grow: people count on the internet for everything, which means that the need for online security will only increase over time. Indeed, it did – North found a huge market among internet surfers eager for confidentiality.
Okmanas admits that when the company was founded, “no one cared” about some technological companies that have taken cybersecurity seriously.
As they continued to build north, use cases and demand increased. This also meant that the founding duo should become more than engineering.
“I now had to learn [about] Finance, legal world, corporate governance, then how to manage teams and businesses, “said Okmanas Fortune Last year.
Based on its VPN software, Nord allows users to use the Internet while protecting their data and IP addresses. This means more confidentiality for the average user when browsing the web, but technology is also very controversial.
VPNs can be used to bypass Government restrictions on the web and were attacked by Hollywood movie studios For their use in hacking and violation of copyright.
But North, based in Lithuania, is not bogged down by these legal and ethical concerns. It focuses on strengthening its main case of use of the web safe. The company’s servers do not marry user data, which is part of the confidentiality Spiel. He has supported that ad nauseum, and said Fortune Whether people using VPN only to access blocked or unavailable streaming services are “obsolete”.
Okmanas says that northern tools are rarely used for illegal or unjustified purposes. The company also has systems in place to prevent security offenses and other online threats.
“Our goal is really to connect as many people as possible to this Nord Cloud network, where people could use it very safe,” he said.
The VPN world and more
The large features of northern growth are remarkable: in 2022, 10 years after its foundation, it reached unicorn statushas more than 15 million users worldwide and is one of the best known companies in Lithuania (Vinton is another).
Okmanas said North had experienced “enormous growth” over the years. In September 2023, the company raised $ 100 million to an evaluation of $ 3 billion, almost double the amount it has collected when it became a unicorn a year earlier.
The company has shopping to help its expansion. He announced a merger with surfhark in 2022 and bought the competitor Ironwall this year, helping North cybersecurity and beyond. Most of the North user base is centered in the United States and extends over a large age group, while the rest of its customers is a mixed bag of medium and medium-sized enterprises.
North has made its presence feel – it is not uncommon to trip on your ads while listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube or Tiktok video (its VPN was spotted by rapper Drake, Bloomberg reported). Okmanas says it is a deliberate effort to educate more people on northern online tools. This is only one of the many ways that the company spends to bring new customers while online threats continue to loom.
“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars for our acquisition of customers, and it works. Users see the value, and we are very happy,” said Okmanas.
The next northern steps
North has another building to come in Vilnius while it continues to extend its business. For companies of a sufficiently large scale as northern, an IPO seems to be the next natural step (at least that’s what Airbnb and Uber have done, and this is one of the avenues business are attracted).
But North does not see it this way. Their objective is the preparation of the IPOs but not necessarily to make public immediately, because it is a good barometer of the company’s situation.
“We have great ambitions, but we don’t need to make an IPO,” said Okmanas. North may have started small, but it has been profitable on a cash flow base from the start. He transformed the EBITDA-Postix last year.
He said that North was not submitted to the deadline but wants to prepare it so that it is ready for an IPO “Press a button”.
“But for sure, we don’t need it, and we will not do it in the next six months or a year,” said the CO-PDG.
“We are in a very lucky position where we grow extremely quickly, and we are very profitable.”
A version of this story was initially published on Fortune.com September 30, 2024.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
