Nord Security founders launch Nexos.ai to help enterprises take AI projects from pilot to production

A new AI orchestration startup from the founders of Lithuanian Unicorn Nord Security Gearing up to help enterprises put their AI projects into production, the primary focus is on bringing greater visibility, security and adaptability to large-scale language models (LLMs).

Nexos.aiAs startups call it, its hands-on work Thomas Oakmanus (pictured above) and Imanthus sabaliauscusWho created one of the most recognized brands not only in Lithuania, but in the whole of Europe Nord Security, best known for its flagship VPN product NordVPN, was first bootstrapped 10 years ago. A bumper $100 million investment victim at a valuation of $1.6 billion in 2022.

Their new company is coming out of stealth today with $8 million in funding from a number of high-profile backers, including major investors. Index Ventureswhich has now made its first investment in Lithuania

“We’ve known Thomas and the work he’s done for years, so we were excited as soon as we heard that he was building a new company in the AI ​​space, and was finally willing to take venture capital into it. [early] On stage, we were very interested,” says Index Ventures partner Hannah Seal TechCrunch said.

Other notable investors include Creandum and Dig Ventures, and prominent angels such as the CEOs of Datadog, Klarna, Supercell and Wix also participated.

Capitalize on a catalyst

Currently, teams that want to put their AI into production must connect a myriad of tools, which likely involves hiring and building teams with the necessary skills. This is where Nexos.ai wants to step in

“I found that there was a big gap between running AI as a pilot and going into production,” Okmanas told TechCrunch in an interview. “When you’re testing AI in your lab, it can work and it can be useful, but when you want to put it into production, especially in enterprises, how do you ensure high availability? How do you ensure security? How do you manage costs?”

Nord Security has been around for more than a decade, but five years ago, it folded into an umbrella company. TesonateAn incubator with one portfolio More than two dozen businesses. One of these is a web hosting firm Hostingerwhich was recently added AI-enabled smart in its website building tools. Okmanas, a Hostinger board member and shareholder, said the problems they encountered served as a catalyst for what would eventually become Nexos.ai.

“We wanted to employ AI in our website builder, so we launched OpenAI, we started testing it, and we put it into production,” Okmanas said. “In August, we were billed $150,000. for what Why was it so expensive? There was no visibility.”

And while OpenAI has gone down several times, Okmanus was convinced that something had to be done to make it easier to deploy, manage and optimize the “increasingly complex ecosystem of AI models” that organizations might need.

Through a simple API (Application Programming Interface), customers can access more than 200 AI models, from big names like OpenAI and Anthropic to smaller, specialized LLMs. The idea is that, if OpenAI goes down, a company can temporarily (and automatically) move to a different provider without progressing. Or if the costs associated with accessing a particular LLM explode for whatever reason, a company may shift them to another to keep costs down.

Nexos.ai also introduces “intelligent caching” into the mix — if a particular query is repeated by multiple users, the system can refer back to its own database instead of engaging with LLM, which can be expensive.

On the security and compliance front, Nexos.ai also prevents individuals from sending personal data to LLM providers, or if an employee leaves a company, their access can be terminated immediately.

There’s no escaping the elephant in the house, though: one of the reasons Enterprises have been hesitant to embrace AI The thorny issue of data security — Healthcare organizations, banks or insurance companies cannot trust LLM providers with all their sensitive information. It is worth noting that Hostinger itself Hit with data breaches in 2019 and NordVPN Also hacked In the past — the attacks that all companies face today.

This raises questions about how Nexos.ai handles such data, given that it is hosting everything on its own infrastructure. Okmanas said the company will likely offer self-hosting in the future and that it already supports integration with the company’s own internal LL.M.

It also has guards to detect when data like personally identifiable information (PII) is sent to it — in such cases, it can reroute the data to the parent company’s own LLM or database. But if a query is generic, like a customer asking an AI agent for details about their location and opening hours, the query will be directed to Nexos.ai.

From concept to launch

It took Nexos.ai about six weeks to go from an idea to formal incorporation, and while the pace of securing funding was largely down to the founders’ lineage, a large part of it was simply time.

“I think we’ve finally moved beyond the hype of AI, and now the real-world applications are coming,” Seale added. “All large enterprises are realizing that this really makes sense, and they need to adopt AI at scale. And now is the time for infrastructure models to catch up.”

The speed of execution, however, was due to Tessonet’s extensive organizational setup, which has around 4,000 employees across its portfolio. This enabled Okmanas to quickly assemble a team of about 30 people he knew and trusted to work full-time on Nexos.ai.

“We have these teams that can really join forces — they’ve been working together for so many years, they don’t need to be told what to do,” Okmanas said. “We will also recruit from outside, but it will take a lot longer.”

Nexos.ai’s platform is slated to launch in late March, though Okmanus says it’s already working with a bunch of “beta customers and design partners.”