Originally published at: Armira Growth teams up with Nextcloud: Frank Karlitschek on what it means for the community - Nextcloud
Today we are announcing that we are entering in a long term partnershp with Armira Growth, an investment company based in Munich and they join as a minority shareholder in Nextcloud GmbH. We can imagine this news creates questions, so we asked Frank what it means for the community.
Why did you find an investor?
For 10 years, Nextcloud has grown organically. We were profitable, but invested everything back in the company. So there are always limits. Since about 2 years, there has been a huge increase in interest in and demand for Nextcloud. I’m sure you have all noticed that. More, and ever larger organizations, need Nextcloud in more and more ways and situations to protect their data and sovereignty. We want to help them, while also continuing to make Nextcloud even better for people using it: both private, small businesses, in education, healthcare and so on!
That means hiring more people, growing our organization, doing an even better job in development but also sales and marketing. Of course, we don’t do this alone. We have tons of big and small partners, and all of you, our community. Internally, we decided it would help us to bring in an external party that could provide extra funding, but also experience with growing companies from 170 to 1000 people and further. That is what Armira Growth brings to Nextcloud!
We had long conversations, learned about them, before we agreed to do this. And they, too, of course had a look at Nextcloud, at our organization and how we work with each other, and with our customers and all of you. They take Nextcloud and what we do – digital sovereignty, open source and open source business – very seriously. I see that as a sign of trust, to have an experienced third party not just say “nice work there”, but take a bet and support Nextcloud. I think that Armira Growth and Nextcloud are a good team.
What will users notice of the change?
For the community, either individuals or professional teams, nothing changes. The Nextcloud platform stays fully open source under the AGPL 3.0 licence. Everyone can still read the whole code, contribute, build on it, or fork it. Nextcloud will remain free to download as it has been the past 10 years. The people who build Nextcloud keep deciding where it goes, together as a community. Self-hosting, the app store, the forums, the Nextcloud Community Conference carry on as before.
Of course, we will continue to grow, even faster. But that has been the case for 10 years!
What power does the investor get?
The founders keep the majority of the company, while Armira Growth holds a minority share. This means nothing changes in how we make decisions in Nextcloud. In the development area that would not really be possible in any case. Of course, we have our engineers doing much work, and we internally decide their focus based on the needs of our customers and where we think Nextcloud should go. But in the end there are many more people who contribute that do not work for Nextcloud GmbH and we never could tell them what to do anyway. We co-create Nextcloud with our community, all of you, and that is only possible as long as you are willing to work with us. We have to keep making the right calls, otherwise, there is no Nextcloud. That would not help anyone.
The team at Armira Growth and Nextcloud are very much aligned, in that regard. They want to see a bigger ecosystem, more partners, more community members, because together, we make Nextcloud successful. In a way, Armira Growth invests in the Nextcloud community and ecosystem, because that’s what makes Nextcloud successful.
Armira Growth gets no access to user or customer data, and of course, neither Nextcloud nor our new investor has access to the users’ Nextcloud servers.
So who is Armira Growth?
Armira Growth makes long-term investments in companies run by their founders. They’ve made more than 30 investments and work with over 100 industry advisors. Nextcloud is the first open source company they’ve invested in.
Next to the financial investment, we will mostly benefit from the expertise Armira Growth has in scaling up companies like Nextcloud. This is important to us as we see then demand for Nextcloud jumping up over the past two years. Governments, universities and companies across the globe started looking for a way out of Big Tech. Requests from organizations more than tripled, and we doubled the team to keep up. To keep up with this growth, we as a company must grow as well.
At the end of 2025 we announced that we’ll invest €250 million in digital sovereignty by 2030. That plan does not depend on Nextcloud teaming up with Armira Growth. We’d be doing it anyway. But their money and experience lets us move faster and spend it more efficiently.
What will happen now?
Public administrations in Europe and beyond show huge interest, and someone has to provide the necessary software, support and migration services. Open source technology is playing a crucial role here. Earlier this year, the EU announced its Open Source Strategy to reduce dependence on proprietary technologies. France is phasing out proprietary operating systems and other software in favor of open source solutions. The German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are also switching to open source., as are ministries in France, Austria, Switzerland and many other countries also outside Europe.
Open source is becoming increasingly important, and we want to remain at the forefront of this movement. With more employees and greater expertise, we can develop Nextcloud Hub more quickly and facilitate deployment.
Nextcloud exists because many people write code, translate, test, report bugs and help others. It is not just a product or a single company, it is a community project and ecosystem that goes well beyond us. And it will stay that way. But we want to give more people access to open source and digital sovereignty and speed up. This is why we focus on all of you, community and ecosystem, with our ISV program for example. Armira Growth and Nextcloud together can do an even better job.
If you have more questions, post them on the forum and we’ll respond!
