Europe’s Answer to OpenAI? How Nexos AI Is Redefining Secure Enterprise AI

💡 Can Europe Lead the Next AI Revolution? Inside Nexos AI’s €30M Bet on Secure Enterprise AI

Europe has been called “slow” in the AI race. But that perception might be changing — fast.

Lithuania, a small Baltic nation better known for its cybersecurity startup NordVPN, is now home to one of Europe’s most ambitious AI ventures: Nexos AI — a platform that wants to help enterprises adopt AI safely.

And investors are betting big.

Just months after emerging from stealth, Nexos AI raised €30 million (about $35M USD) in Series A funding at a €300 million valuation — co-led by Index Ventures and Evantic Capital, with backing from the founders of Datadog, Klarna, Supercell, and Wix.

So what’s so special about Nexos AI that investors rushed in even before they started fundraising?

Let’s break it down 👇

🧩 The Problem: AI in Enterprises Is a Promise — and a Risk

Most companies want to use AI. But few know how to do it safely.

Employees are already using ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot daily — often by pasting internal documents, customer data, or code snippets into public models.

That’s a data privacy nightmare waiting to happen.

As Tomas Okmanas, co-founder of Nexos AI (and of Nord Security fame), puts it:

“The biggest corporate data leak is currently in the making.”

Companies are stuck between two bad choices:

1. Ban AI tools (and kill innovation)
2. Allow them freely (and risk sensitive data exposure)

Nexos AI wants to solve this paradox by becoming a neutral middle layer — what Okmanas calls the “Switzerland of LLMs.”

🧠 The Solution: A Safe Bridge Between Employees and AI

Nexos AI acts as a control gateway between company employees and the AI tools they use.

Think of it like a secure VPN for AI — an intermediary that filters, tracks, and protects what data goes in and out of generative AI systems.

Its core components are:

• 🧩 AI Workspace: The interface employees use to interact with different AI models securely.
• 🔐 AI Gateway: A centralized control layer for developers and IT teams. It handles security, compliance, and cost management.

This single “gateway” connects to more than 200 AI models, allowing enterprises to choose the best fit for their task — whether it’s OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude, or a private Llama 3 model hosted on-prem.

The company’s next goal? To expand its support for private models — crucial for industries like banking, defense, and healthcare that can’t send sensitive data to external clouds.

🧭 Why This Matters: AI Governance Is the Missing Piece

Every boardroom in 2025 is asking the same question:

👉 “How can we use AI without losing control of our data?”

That’s where AI governance comes in — and Nexos AI sits right at the center of it.

By providing an auditable, compliant, and secure AI layer, Nexos AI gives enterprises the confidence to scale AI safely.

The timing couldn’t be better. Governments in Europe are tightening regulations under the EU AI Act, and corporate leaders are under pressure to balance innovation with responsibility.

Companies that once viewed AI as “too risky” are now rethinking their strategies.

Nexos AI’s early customers include:

• Payhawk (a fintech unicorn from Bulgaria)
• Tesonet portfolio companies, including Hostinger, a global web-hosting leader

At Hostinger, Okmanas says, AI automation has already saved the company €10 million a year by reducing support team size.

That’s the kind of ROI that convinces boards fast.

💸 The Backstory: From NordVPN to Nexos.ai

Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas aren’t first-time founders.

They built Nord Security, the cybersecurity powerhouse behind NordVPN, now valued at over $3 billion.

Their experience running one of the world’s top privacy companies gave them a deep understanding of trust, encryption, and user data — precisely what the AI world is struggling with today.

That’s why their new venture resonated so strongly with investors.

Evantic Capital’s founder, Matt Miller (ex-Sequoia Capital), didn’t just invest — he pursued Nexos AI until the deal happened, despite the company not seeking funds.

Through Miller’s “Legends” network — a group of 140 top tech operators and executives who mentor startups — Nexos AI now has direct access to some of the best product, policy, and infrastructure minds in the world.

🚀 The Plan: Growth, Expansion, and Trust

Nexos AI's roadmap is as bold as its founders.

The team is currently:

• Running 50–60 demo calls a week with enterprises.
• Expanding into regulated industries (finance, healthcare, government).
• Building teams across Europe and North America.
• Scaling toward 100 employees by its first anniversary.

Their biggest early advantage? Europe’s data-sovereignty laws.

As U.S. models like GPT and Claude face scrutiny over cross-border data flows, European institutions are seeking local AI solutions that comply with GDPR and the EU AI Act.

Nexos AI could become Europe’s answer to OpenAI — not by competing on intelligence, but by winning on trust.

🔍 The Bigger Picture: The Rise of “AI Infrastructure 2.0”

Nexos AI isn’t just a productivity tool — it’s part of a new wave of AI infrastructure startups redefining how companies integrate, monitor, and govern AI at scale.

Think of the layers being built right now:

• OpenAI — Models
• Anthropic / Mistral / Cohere — Foundation providers
• Nexos AI — Secure governance layer
• Snowflake / Databricks — Data foundation

In this stack, Nexos AI becomes the trust layer — the piece every CIO and CISO will demand before deploying AI enterprise-wide.

This could soon become as essential as firewalls were for the early Internet.

🌍 Europe’s Moment in AI

For years, Europe has been seen as lagging behind Silicon Valley in AI innovation. But what if Europe’s privacy-first culture becomes its competitive advantage?

The EU’s strong focus on regulation, security, and trust could make it the global leader in ethical AI deployment.

And startups like Nexos.ai are proof that this approach is not anti-innovation — it’s the foundation for responsible growth.

In fact, Okmanas’s “Switzerland for LLMs” metaphor perfectly captures what European tech does best: Build systems that protect, not exploit.

If Europe plays this right, it might not just regulate AI — it could set the global standard for safe AI adoption.

💬 Key Discussion Questions

Let’s open the floor for your thoughts:

1. Should every enterprise use a neutral AI gateway like Nexos.ai before adopting generative AI tools?
2. Will Europe’s privacy-first approach become a global advantage or a competitive limitation?
3. Can a small country like Lithuania become a serious AI powerhouse?
4. Would you trust a third-party AI layer to protect your company’s confidential data?
5. How far are we from an “AI firewall” becoming mandatory in every enterprise?

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Reference: Tech Crunch