Who owns NordVPN? Ownership structure explained (2026)

NordVPN is the flagship product of one of Europe's largest consumer cybersecurity companies, part of a fast-growing subscription software sector, yet its ownership is often misunderstood. Search results routinely claim it is owned by China, or point to a Panama shell, or to a Lithuanian accelerator called Tesonet. The reality is a layered corporate structure that spans several jurisdictions, all sitting under two founders who kept the business closely held for its first ten years.

That structure is not accidental. A VPN sells trust: customers pay to route their traffic through a company that promises not to log or sell it. Where that company is incorporated, who controls it, and who can compel it to hand over data are central to the product itself. Ownership is the business.

Understanding who owns NordVPN means separating the brand from the entity that operates it, the operating entity from the group that owns the brand, and the group from the accelerator where it was born. This article walks through each layer.

NordVPN launched in 2012, built by Tomas Okmanas (who also uses the name Tom Okman) and Eimantas Sabaliauskas, two friends from Lithuania who had grown up together. The product emerged from Tesonet, a Lithuanian technology accelerator and venture builder the pair were involved in founding, which incubated several startups out of Vilnius.

The security products were consolidated under the Nord Security brand in 2019. Today Nord Security is a suite of privacy and security tools: NordVPN, the NordPass password manager, NordLocker encrypted storage, NordLayer business network security, the NordProtect identity product, and the Saily eSIM service. NordVPN remains the largest and best-known of these.

The corporate structure has three important layers. The consumer VPN service is operated by a Panama-registered company, historically named Tefincom S.A. and now nordvpn S.A. Panama was chosen deliberately because it has no mandatory data-retention laws. Above that sits Nord Security, whose ultimate holding company is Nordsec Ltd, incorporated in the United Kingdom in 2020 and registered in London. The engineering and operational base remains in Lithuania.

Nord Security does not publish audited revenue. Third-party estimates put its annual recurring revenue in the region of $357 million, a figure the company has not confirmed. What is confirmed is that the business reached a $3 billion valuation in 2023 and employs roughly 1,800 people.

Neither NordVPN, Nord Security, nor Nordsec Ltd trades on any stock exchange. The group has no ticker, no public shareholders, and no announced plans for an initial public offering. Control rests with the two founders and, since 2022, a small group of private investors who together hold minority stakes.

Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas founded the business and, having bootstrapped it without outside money until 2022, entered that first funding round as full owners. The two rounds Nord Security has raised were minority investments, which means the founders retained majority control after both. Exact post-financing equity percentages have never been publicly disclosed. Nord Security is a private company under no obligation to publish its cap table, and it does not. What is clear is that the founders remain the controlling shareholders and the operational leaders.

Nord Security took outside capital only twice, both times in $100 million rounds, and both times selling a minority position:

The April 2022 round was the first outside money the company had ever taken, roughly a decade after NordVPN launched. Novator Ventures led it, with Burda Principal Investments, General Catalyst, and a group of angel investors and tech-company founders participating. The September 2023 round was led by Warburg Pincus, with Novator and Burda returning. Total disclosed outside funding stands at $200 million. Because the group is private and publishes no audited accounts, outsiders can only estimate its worth today with a business valuation calculator and comparable multiples.

Novator Ventures, the technology fund associated with Icelandic entrepreneur Thor Bjorgolfsson, led the first round and returned for the second. It is the most consistent outside backer.

Warburg Pincus, the large US private equity firm, led the 2023 round. Its stated interest was helping Nord Security expand its product range and pursue acquisitions, which signaled a shift from pure organic growth toward consolidation in the privacy market.

Burda Principal Investments, the growth-capital arm of German media group Hubert Burda Media, participated in both rounds. General Catalyst, a US venture firm, joined the 2022 round. None of these investors holds a controlling stake; each sits in the minority alongside the founders.

In February 2022, just before its first external raise, Nord Security combined with Surfshark, another Lithuanian VPN company. The deal was structured as a merger in which the two groups joined forces while continuing to operate their brands independently. The combined group is what carried the $1.6 billion and later $3 billion valuations. Surfshark's founder had earlier ties to the same Tesonet ecosystem, which is one reason the two companies share a common lineage.

Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas control the company they built. The pair are described as co-founders and co-CEOs of the Nord Security group, and as its controlling shareholders. Okmanas is the more public of the two, frequently representing the company in press and at industry events, while both retain operational authority over strategy and product direction.

Their earlier involvement in Tesonet is central to the company's origin story. Tesonet operated as a venture builder that spun up multiple businesses, and NordVPN was among the most successful. The connection has drawn scrutiny over the years, with critics questioning the relationship between the VPN and the accelerator, but the founders' control over Nord Security itself is not in dispute.

Nord Security has not published a detailed board roster. Its two outside lead investors, Novator Ventures and Warburg Pincus, typically take board or observer seats in growth investments of this size, though the company has not confirmed specific appointments. Because both rounds were minority investments, board control is understood to remain with the founders rather than the investors.

NordVPN's use of a Panama-registered operating entity is a deliberate legal choice. Panama has no mandatory data-retention laws, which supports NordVPN's no-logs claim by placing the service outside jurisdictions that could compel logging. The trade-off is transparency: a multi-jurisdiction structure spanning Panama, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania makes it harder for outsiders to see exactly where accountability sits, and it is a recurring theme in customer scrutiny of the brand.

In 2018, an attacker gained access to one of NordVPN's servers through a third-party data center in Finland. The company disclosed the incident in 2019 and stated that no user activity logs were exposed because it does not keep them. The episode nonetheless raised questions about the company's infrastructure oversight and prompted NordVPN to commission independent no-logs audits, which it has repeated in subsequent years to rebuild trust.

NordVPN's origins inside Tesonet have generated persistent questions. Critics have pointed to shared infrastructure and personnel between the VPN and the accelerator, and to the complexity of the corporate web, as reasons for caution. The company's position is that Nord Security is an independent business controlled by its founders. There is no public evidence contradicting founder control, but the entangled history is part of why the ownership question is asked so often.

Because NordVPN operates through a Panama entity and markets globally, it is frequently and incorrectly described as Chinese-owned or state-linked. There is no basis for this. The company is controlled by its two Lithuanian founders and backed by European and US investors. The myth persists largely because the layered structure invites speculation.

For a VPN, ownership is not a background detail. Customers are paying a company to stand between them and anyone trying to watch their traffic. Who controls that company, and which legal system it answers to, determines how credible its privacy promises are. That is why a VPN's cap table and its country of incorporation attract far more attention than they would for an ordinary software firm.

Founder control is the single most important fact here. Because Okmanas and Sabaliauskas kept the business bootstrapped for a decade and then sold only minority stakes, no outside investor can dictate strategy or force a change in the no-logs policy. That independence is part of the pitch. It stands in contrast to privacy tools with very different ownership designs, such as the encrypted messenger Signal, which is run by a nonprofit foundation, the private search engine DuckDuckGo, which remains founder-led and independent, or the messaging app Telegram, tightly held by its founder. Each ownership model sends a different signal to privacy-conscious users, and NordVPN's is founder-controlled with patient minority capital.

The arrival of Warburg Pincus in 2023 changed the incentive structure at the margin. Private equity money came in explicitly to fund acquisitions and broaden the product range, which is why Nord Security has pushed beyond VPN into password management, encrypted storage, identity protection, and eSIM. Investors backing that expansion will eventually want a return, whether through an eventual sale or a public listing, and that expectation shapes how aggressively the company grows.

For users, the practical takeaway is that NordVPN is controlled by people whose entire business depends on the privacy promise holding. A breach of trust would damage not just NordVPN but Surfshark, NordPass, and every other brand in the group. That concentration of reputational risk under two founders is, in effect, the company's strongest incentive to keep its promises.

NordVPN sits within the Nord Security group, which is led by its two co-founders, Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas, as co-CEOs. Okmanas, who also goes by Tom Okman, is the more publicly visible of the two. There is no separate standalone CEO for the NordVPN product line.

No. NordVPN, its parent Nord Security, and the group holding company Nordsec Ltd are all privately held. There is no public stock and no announced IPO. The company has raised only two rounds of outside capital, both minority investments.

NordVPN was launched in 2012 by Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas, two childhood friends from Lithuania. The product was incubated through the Tesonet accelerator, which the pair were involved in founding. They remain the controlling shareholders of the business today.

The two founders remain the controlling shareholders. Outside minority investors include Novator Ventures, Warburg Pincus, Burda Principal Investments, and General Catalyst. Exact equity percentages have never been publicly disclosed, but both funding rounds were minority investments that left the founders in control.

Nord Security has raised $200 million in disclosed outside funding: $100 million in April 2022 at a $1.6 billion valuation, and $100 million in September 2023 at a $3 billion valuation. The company bootstrapped for roughly a decade before its first external round and has not disclosed a newer valuation as of 2026.

No. NordVPN is controlled by its two Lithuanian founders and backed by European and US investors. The claim that it is Chinese-owned is a persistent myth, driven by the company's Panama-registered operating entity and its multi-jurisdiction structure, but it has no factual basis.