Having more than 435 million users worldwide, Avast Software is the biggest antivirus providers in the world. Headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, the company was founded by two people who avoided opting for physics in college, to avoid entering into politics and joining Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The thirty years of history of this cybersecurity company once had started with a team of 40 people, and after thirty years, it has approximately 1,700 employees, across its 25 offices worldwide. The company not only have the largest number of global users, but it also had the biggest tech IPO of 2018.
The Founders
Two Czech software engineers Pavel Baudis and Eduard Kuc
Baudis was a graduate from the Prague University of Chemical Technology and majored in Information Technology. After graduating from the university, he started working as a Graphics Specialist at the Mathematical Research Institute. In 1986, the first computer virus came into being, and, after two years, in 1988, Baudis wrote the first antivirus program to remove it.
The other co-founder of Avast, Eduard Kucera was born in 1953 and was graduated from the Charles University.
Kucera also worked at the Research Institute for Mathematical Machines, where he met Baudis.
According to Forbes (2017), both Baudis and Kucera
Founding Avast
Working at RIMM, Pavel Baudis came across a virus named Vienna and developed the first program to remove it. The success of the program made him think of founding Alwil, a cooperative to develop antivirus, with Kucera.
In the 80’s it was prohibited to have private ownership, so the two co-founders left the Research Institute of Mathematical Machines, in order to found Alwil, under Socialist Union of Youth (the only legal private-owned business entity at that time). They developed the first software named Avast under Alwil.
In 1991, they turned the cooperative into a joint partnership, in the wake of the Velvet Revolution. Due to the Velvet Revolution, there was a huge change in the country’s economy. In 1995, the company released its first antivirus program for Windows 95, written by Alwil employee, Ondrej Vlcek . In the 90s the software became really popular, and Avast received an award from the IT security testing organization, at the Virus Bulletin.
The late 90s were not very good for the company, financially. So in 2001, the company launched a freemium program, in which the users could use its basic product, for free. By 2004, the number of free users grew to a million, and in just two years the number had multiplied twenty times.
In 2010, the company was rebranded as Avast, raising $100 million in venture capital investments. Till 2013, Avast had extended its services in 38 countries, in 43 languages and 200 million people using the software.
In 2014, Avast valued at $1 billion after CVC Capital bought an interest in Avast. The company also launched its mobile app in the same year. In 2015, it became the biggest antivirus company in the world, having the largest share in the market for antivirus software.
In 2016, Avast acquired AVG, for $1.3 billion, and in the following year, it acquired UK-based company Piriform. In May 2018, the company went public on the London Stock Exchange and valued at £2.4 billion. It was one of the biggest technology listings of UK.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.