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The IT sector occupies a significant place in the Lithuanian economy and is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. Among the services most frequently exported by Lithuanian companies are computer programming, consulting and related activities, which are often contracted by German companies. A particular example is NFQ, which is also responsible for the success of internet giants such as the flight search engine Swoodoo.
NFQ is a software engineering and product development company founded in 2002 as a partnership between German entrepreneurs and Lithuanian engineers. The company is headquartered in Kaunas, Lithuania. Additional offices are located in two Lithuanian cities as well as in Poland, Singapore and Vietnam and a digital marketing agency in Bavaria. NFQ is now a global technology and product scaling company with 800 employees.
Unique way of working
NFQ has a robust portfolio in Germany and beyond. The company’s clients and partners include Sixt, Real (Kaufland), Home24, Internations, Nexus United, Sensus Aero, Alaiko and Weezy. NFQ also has a proven track record of scaling startups: examples such as HomeToGo, Swoodoo, Lemoncat, Takeout Group, Smarketer, Plugsurfing and dozens of others speak for themselves and prove the notion of “startup tech DNA.”
OXID eSales, an e-commerce market leader of the 2000s, is also among the references for which NFQ became the central development center. Swoodoo, Germany’s most popular flight search engine, soon followed. Within a few years of its launch in 2007, Swoodoo became the leading travel search project in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).
And in 2010, Kayak, another global travel search engine provider and member of the Priceline Group, acquired Swoodoo. While this was a prime example of scaling the business and successfully exiting, NFQ’s work didn’t end there. Kayak added 80 more professionals to NFQ’s Swoodoo team and continued to partner with NFQ as a technical scaling engine. As a result, NFQ continues to help millions of people find the best flight deals and plan their trips smarter.
HomeToGo, the world’s leading search engine for vacation rentals, is another showcase for NFQ. The Berlin-based company chose NFQ as its key technology partner from day one in 2014. The Lithuanian company gradually built a team of 90 professionals for HomeToGo, including many key technology positions, with a center in Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania. HomeToGo had one goal when it partnered with NFQ – to grow and expand its business.
In just a few years, NFQ helped HomeToGo expand to more than 17 markets and become the world’s largest vacation rental platform. At the same time, NFQ has always been HomeToGo’s primary source of innovation. A state-of-the-art search module developed for HomeToGo was one of the main reasons NFQ won the 2014 German Business Innovation Award (AHK), presented by the President of Lithuania. Already, the two HomeToGo offices in Lithuania and Berlin are working closely together to ensure continued innovation and growth.
True partnerships instead of client-contractor relationships
Lithuania ranks second in the world for “tertiary efficiency,” according to Bloomberg, and this is reflected in NFQ’s work environment.
“We work with our clients from conceptualizing their business ideas into systems and products to translating their strategies into functional outcomes,” explains Paulius Insoda, CEO of NFQ Technologies.
“We sit down together to develop working strategies, goals and visions for our clients’ products and services. We do everything from MVP development to building technical competencies. We help startups with digital innovation and established companies with digital transformation.”
The power of the right mindset and the right team
Lithuania’s population leads the EU in higher education, and choosing IT as a field of study is becoming increasingly popular. The country is committed to increasing STEM education, which is why Lithuania ranks first in Central and Eastern Europe for university-business R&D collaboration. It is therefore not surprising that NFQ, similar to other Lithuanian IT companies, considers talent as its most important asset.
by Uwe Schmidt
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