Nginx, a Russian company, has been developing advanced web servers which are recognized globally. An estimated 40% of international servers and more than half of highly loaded servers are said to operate based on Nginx web servers.

Nginx is a vivid example of a very successful international start-up of Russian origin. With an investment of $103m the start-up put together what then emerged as the world’s third most widely used web server after the Apache and Microsoft products; the Nginx servers beat those of Google. The start-up is still headquartered in Moscow.

Earlier this year Nginx was bought by F5 Networks, a U.S.-based provider of cloud and IT security solutions. The American company had to shell out $670m in the deal.

The Nginx co-founders—Igor Sysoev who wrote his first code back in 2001 for the Rambler search engine, Maksim Konovalov and CEO and co-investor Gus Robertson—joined F5 as new employees.