Company: Wire
Founders: Jonathan Christensen, Alan Duric, Priidu Zilmer
Website: https://wire.com/en/
About Wire
Wire started in Berlin in 2012 with a clear objective: solve one of cybersecuritys toughest problems. End-to-end encryption worked for small groups, but once those groups grew into the tens, hundreds or thousands, legacy systems couldnt maintain security or control. That gap left large organisations exposed.
Wire recognised early that secure collaboration needed a different approach. Encrypting messages alone was never going to be enough. Modern organisations need digital sovereignty, meaning they keep control of their communication systems, their data and the rules that apply to them. Without that control, sensitive information is exposed, particularly in government, finance, energy and other critical sectors. Older cryptographic methods simply were not designed for these pressures or for large and constantly changing groups.
To meet this challenge, Wire helped develop a new cryptographic standard that could underpin truly sovereign communication systems. Working alongside organisations such as Google and Cisco, Wire played a founding role in creating Messaging Layer Security, or MLS, through the Internet Engineering Task Force. MLS is not digital sovereignty itself, but it provides a critical building block. It solves long-standing limitations that stopped end-to-end encryption from scaling, making it possible for large and dynamic groups to collaborate securely within environments where organisations retain full control over their data and infrastructure.
At the core of the protocol is a tree-based structure that enables efficient key updates without overloading devices or networks. When someone joins, leaves or switches devices, MLS automatically refreshes the cryptographic state for the whole group. This prevents data leakage and protects group members even if a device is compromised later. Its scalability is what makes MLS suited to large organizations with dynamic groups and collaborating teams.
Though many different organisations played their part in developing the standard, Wire was the first collaboration platform to deliver MLS on a full production-scale implementation for enterprise-class secure communication. It took years to test and optimise the tech to demonstrate its functionality in real-world scenarios. It is a major shift for secure collaborations, given that now organisations could have end-to-end encryption without highly constrained group size restrictions or device constraints, which was not possible before.
Wire has further demonstrated that secure cryptography does not have to be complex for end-users. Wire enables end users to have secure communication, calling, and file transfers with the ease of a consumer-style messaging app, while maintaining enterprise-class access controls. Critically, Wire designed its platform to always use end-to-end encryption on for all messaging, calling, conferencing, and file transfers so that end-users would not encounter security friction nor would they be able to opt out of staying private and protected.
Today, Wire is one of the most prominent players in sovereign communication technology in Europe. It safeguards over 1800 organisations globally, with several G7 governments being its clients. It bought Pydio in 2024 to incorporate enterprise-level content management into its sovereign architecture. Wire has, in its pioneering efforts in MLS technology, established that the highest security and most accessible usability are not mutually exclusive and have now set the bar for secure, sovereign collaboration.
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