ProtonMail, one of the most famous cyber security companies, has opened its new office in Vilnius. This Swiss startup was the first company to offer a private and secure email that can be used by people without any technological background. According to the company’s representatives, the decision to expand to Lithuania was made because of many talented specialists here.
ProtonMail was created in 2014 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The idea of encrypted email has appealed to thousands of people – the company attracted more than half a million dollars of crowdfunding in only a few months.
Today, more than 12 million users worldwide use the products of the company – email and Virtual Private Network (VPN).
‘For a long time, cybersecurity has been mostly relevant to organizations and businesses. With the growing popularity of artificial intelligence and data science solutions, the Internet of Things and its gradual arrival to everyone’s home, data security is becoming a problem for every Internet user. As a result, the demand for cybersecurity services to consumers will only grow, and the fact that Lithuania is attracting well-known global companies like ProtonMail is a big achievement for us’, at the opening event said Virginijus Sinkevičius, Business and Innovation Minister.
Vilnius is the sixth office of ProtonMail. The company also has its branches in Geneva, Zurich, San Francisco, Skopje and Prague. According to ProtonMail representatives, the need for online privacy on has been growing immensely. This is one of the reasons for the company’s expansion.
‘When we developed ProtonMail, our goal was to create secure and private Internet. Unlike many companies, we do not collect data about our users and their habits, we do not do any content analysis, we do not sell data about our users to advertising clients, etc. – only users can access their inbox.
Recently, we are witnessing a privacy revolution on the Internet – people are starting to understand the importance of their data and are starting to demand it from companies. This shows that we are expanding in the right direction and thus we will offer even more tools to protect privacy online in the near future,’ said Andy Yen, the co-founder of ProtonMail.
He told that the long-term vision of ProtonMail is to become a real alternative to such technology giants like Google. According to Andy Yen, top-level professionals and their motivation are crucial to achieving these goals, and thus Vilnius was chosen as a place for the new office.
‘Global technology market is distinguished by the fact that it is not restricted by geographical boundaries, specialists can work anywhere in the world at any time. In Vilnius we found not only a lot of talented professionals, but also people who looking for meaning at their work. This motivation is very important for us, thus we are planning to expand our team here’, said CEO of ProtonMail.
Currently, fourteen IT, business development and marketing specialists work at ProtonMail in Vilnius. The company has more than one hundred employees worldwide.
