A brand new AI orchestration startup from the founders of Lithuanian unicorn Nord Safety is launching to assist enterprises convey their AI initiatives to manufacturing, with an preliminary give attention to better visibility into giant language fashions (LLMs), safety And it is about adapting.
Nexos.ai, because the startup known as, is the handiwork of Tomas Okmanas (pictured above) and Eimantas Sabaliauskas, who constructed one of the recognizable manufacturers not solely in Lithuania however throughout Europe. Nord Safety, greatest identified for its flagship VPN product NordVPN, bootstrapped its means by way of its first 10 years earlier than dealing with a bumper $100 million funding at a $1.6 billion valuation in 2022 (it later raised fundraising hit a valuation of $3 billion throughout ).
His new firm is rising from stealth right this moment with $8 million in funding from a variety of high-profile backers, together with lead investor Index Ventures, which has now made its first funding in Lithuania.
“We have identified about Tomas and the work he is achieved for years, in order quickly as we heard he was constructing a brand new firm within the AI area, and at last getting enterprise capital cash on it. Prepared for. [early] part, we had been very keen,” Hannah Sale, accomplice at Index Ventures, informed TechCrunch.
Different notable traders embrace Creandum and Dig Ventures, and distinguished angels such because the CEOs of Datadog, Klarna, Supercell, and Wix additionally participated.
Investing in a catalyst
Presently, groups trying to convey their AI into manufacturing should mix a number of instruments, probably together with recruiting and constructing groups with the mandatory expertise. That is the place Nexos.ai desires to step in.
“I’ve observed that there is a large distinction between operating an AI as a pilot and going into manufacturing,” Okmanas informed TechCrunch in an interview. “Whenever you’re testing AI in your lab, it might work and it may be helpful, however once you wish to put it into manufacturing, particularly in enterprises, how do you obtain excessive availability? How do you guarantee safety? How do you handle prices?”
Nord Safety has been round for greater than a decade, however 5 years in the past, it was folded into an umbrella firm referred to as Tesonet, an incubator with a portfolio of greater than two dozen companies. One in all them is webhosting agency Hostinger, which lately added AI-powered smarts to its web site builder instrument. Okmanas, a Hostinger board member and shareholder, stated among the issues he confronted served as a catalyst for what would finally turn out to be Nexos.ai.
“We wished to make use of AI in our web site builder, so we turned on OpenAI, we began testing it, and we put it into manufacturing,” Okmanas stated. “In August, we had a invoice for $150,000. For what? Why was it so costly? There was no visibility.”

And whereas OpenAI went down a handful of occasions, Okmanas was satisfied to do one thing to make it simpler for organizations to deploy, handle and optimize the “more and more complicated ecosystem of AI fashions” that organizations want. Shall be.
By means of a easy API (utility programming interface), customers can entry greater than 200 AI fashions, from large names like OpenAI and Anthropic to smaller, area of interest LLMs. The concept is that, if OpenAI goes down, an organization can quickly (and mechanically) seamlessly change to a distinct supplier. Or if the prices concerned in accessing a selected LLM explode for any cause, one firm might transfer to a different to maintain its prices down.
Nexos.ai additionally provides “clever caching” to the combination — if a selected question is repeated by a number of customers, the system can check with its database as an alternative of continuous the LLM, which will be costly.
On the safety and compliance fronts, Nexos.ai additionally prevents people from sending non-public knowledge to LLM suppliers, or if an worker leaves the corporate, their entry will be terminated instantly.

There isn’t any escaping the elephant within the room, although: One cause companies are hesitant to embrace AI is the thorny subject of information safety — whether or not healthcare corporations, banks, or insurance coverage companies present LLM. Cannot belief doers with all of your delicate info. . It is value noting that Hostinger suffered a knowledge breach in 2019 and NordVPN was hacked up to now – the type of assaults that each one corporations face right this moment.
This raises questions on how Nexos.ai handles such knowledge, provided that it’s internet hosting every part by itself infrastructure. Okmanas stated the corporate will possible supply self-hosting sooner or later, and that it already helps corporations integrating with their very own inside LLMs.
It additionally has guardrails in place to detect when knowledge, equivalent to personally identifiable info (PII), is distributed to it—in such instances, it shops the info within the originating firm’s personal LLMs or databases. Can re-route. But when a question is normal, like a consumer asking an AI agent for particulars about their location and opening hours, the question shall be dealt with by Nexos.ai.
From concept to launch
It took Nexos.ai about six weeks to go from an concept to formal incorporation, and whereas the tempo of securing funding was largely right down to the founders, an enormous a part of it was simply time.
“I really feel like we have lastly moved past the AI hype, and now the real-world functions are coming,” Seale added. “All the massive enterprises are realizing that it actually is sensible, and they should undertake AI at scale. And it is time for the infrastructure to meet up with the fashions.
The velocity of execution, although, was as a consequence of Tesonet’s broader organizational setup, which has round 4,000 staff in its portfolio. This enabled Okmanas to shortly assemble a crew of about 30 individuals he knew and trusted to work full-time on Nexos.ai.
“We’ve these groups that may actually be a part of forces — they have been working collectively for therefore a few years, they do not must be informed what’s what,” Okmanas stated. “We may also recruit from outdoors, but it surely takes extra time.”
Nexos.ai’s platform is scheduled to launch by the tip of March, although Okmanas stated it’s already working with a bunch of “beta customers and design companions.”