NetBird nets €8.5M to build a European, open‑source alternative to SSL VPN incumbents

Berlin’s NetBird has closed an €8.5 million Series A to scale its open‑source Zero Trust networking stack and push itself as a European alternative to legacy SSL VPN vendors. The round was led by Pace Capital, with participation from Nauta Capital, InReach Ventures and Antler.

For founders, operators and infrastructure engineers in Europe, NetBird’s raise is notable for two reasons: it points to continued investor appetite for sovereignty‑sensitive security tooling, and it underlines how open‑source, community‑led go‑to‑market models can win enterprise adoption without traditional sales-heavy motion.

Tina He, who led the investment at Pace Capital, framed the thesis succinctly: "Security infrastructure needs to be open, composable and built for how modern organisations actually operate.

NetBird is exactly the kind of foundational layer we look for: technically excellent and loved by the technical community. What impressed us most was the quality of adoption. Teams started small and quickly replaced their entire corporate VPN stack," Tina He told EU‑Startups.

Founded in 2021 by Misha Bragin and Maycon Santos, NetBird combines a WireGuard‑based overlay network with Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and software‑defined networking (SDN) primitives. The product promises direct, secure connectivity between resources without the centralised gateway, port forwarding or firewall gymnastics that come with traditional VPN deployments.

"Enterprise network security has traditionally been gated behind long sales cycles and endless demos before teams can experience real value. We’ve changed that model. At NetBird, the code name for our GTM strategy is ‘Proof of Concept Starts at Home’, meaning that users can try the product for free with minimal friction and experience its value first‑hand in their private homelabs before rolling it out to production. Our community has become our strongest advocate, shaping the product far more than any traditional enterprise marketing ever could," Misha Bragin, CEO and co‑founder, told EU‑Startups.

NetBird positions itself as a replacement for SSL VPN and firewall stacks from the likes of Sophos, SonicWall and Fortinet, claiming simpler operations and fewer single points of failure.

It has already won a range of customers across MSPs, startups, enterprises and public sector organisations — names cited include Sport Alliance, netgo, Signicat and VIEW Group.

“We’re already winning deals and migrating customers away from traditional SSL VPN products like Sophos, SonicWall or Fortinet. This funding helps us do it at an even larger scale,” Maycon Santos, co‑founder and CTO, told EU‑Startups.

NetBird says the €8.5M will be used to scale the platform, grow engineering and product teams, and accelerate migrations for customers shifting off legacy VPNs. The company raised a €4M seed in 2024 led by InReach Ventures and Nauta Capital; this Series A is aimed at translating its organic, community‑led traction into larger enterprise deployments.

The firm also highlights European sovereignty as central to its mission. For organisations conscious about data governance and vendor jurisdiction, a Europe‑based, open‑source foundation can be an appealing alternative to US‑centric network security providers.

For Berlin’s deep bench of network engineers and security startups, NetBird’s raise is a reminder that infrastructure innovation — especially when paired with community credibility — can attract capital and enterprise customers without following the old sales playbook.

NetBird’s next steps will be an important bellwether for Europe’s infrastructure ecosystem: can a community‑driven, open‑source ZTNA stack scale into large enterprise and public sector contracts while preserving product simplicity and engineer goodwill? Investors who backed the round are betting yes.