Nathan Wheeler

Co-Founder & CEO Network Optix (Nx)

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Nathan Wheeler co-founded Network Optix in 2010 and runs it as chief executive. The company makes Nx Witness, an open-platform video management system, and Nx EVOS, which it positions as an operating system for video and IoT rather than as a surveillance product. The strategic choice that defines the business is distribution: rather than selling a branded VMS to end users, Network Optix supplies the software layer that camera manufacturers, hardware makers and integrators build their own offerings on, which is why the platform now manages more than four million devices across over 150 countries while remaining relatively unknown outside the industry. The company shipped version 1.0 at ISC West in 2012, reached profitability the following year, released what it calls the first cloud-based VMS in 2017, and grew from 30 to more than 200 employees between 2019 and 2023. It has made the Inc. 5000 nine times and once ranked seventh fastest-growing software company on that list.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded Network Optix in 2010 and has served as chief executive.
• Unveiled Nx Witness version 1.0 at ISC West in Las Vegas in 2012, and reached profitability with version 1.4 in 2013.
• Launched what the company describes as the world’s first cloud-based video management system in 2017.
• Ranked seventh fastest-growing software company on the Inc. 5000, with nine Inc. 5000 appearances overall.
• Grew headcount from 30 to over 200 between 2019 and 2023.
• Released Nx Witness VMS and Nx EVOS version 5.1 in 2023, followed by the Generation 6 launch from 2024 and expansion into new verticals.
• Built the platform to more than four million managed devices in over 150 countries.
• Established offices in Walnut Creek and Burbank, California; Portland, Oregon; Taipei; Amsterdam; and Belgrade.
• Credited as inventor of multiple data and video enterprise software products.
• Previously director of sales for western North America at the camera manufacturer Arecont Vision, and founder of ENTROPIX and Metapix.

Professional Journey

Wheeler’s route into video software ran through hardware sales: he was director of sales for western North America at Arecont Vision, a megapixel camera manufacturer, which put him on the supply side of an industry whose software was widely regarded as the weak link. Cameras were improving quickly; the management systems recording and retrieving their output were proprietary, closed and tied to specific hardware.

Network Optix was founded in 2010 against that backdrop, with the aim of building a genuinely open video management platform. Version 1.0 appeared at ISC West in Las Vegas in 2012, and by version 1.4 in 2013 the company was profitable — unusually early, and a consequence of the licensing model. Network Optix sells to manufacturers and integrators who embed and rebrand its software rather than to end customers directly, so it carries no field sales cost per installation and grows with its partners’ volumes.

The 2017 release of a cloud-based VMS, which the company claims as an industry first, extended that model. Cloud delivery mattered less for consumers than for the integrators, who could now manage estates of cameras across many customer sites without on-premises servers at each one. The Inc. 5000 recognition — nine appearances, including a seventh-place ranking among software companies — dates from this growth phase.

Between 2019 and 2023 the organisation went from 30 people to more than 200, with engineering distributed across Belgrade and Amsterdam, hardware-ecosystem work out of Taipei, and headquarters in Walnut Creek, California. The product line also broadened conceptually: Nx EVOS is presented as an operating system for video and IoT rather than a surveillance application, reflecting demand from industrial, retail and logistics customers who want to run analytics over camera feeds rather than only record them. Version 5.1 of both Nx Witness and Nx EVOS shipped in 2023, and a sixth generation of the platform launched from 2024.

Wheeler has also been associated with two other ventures, ENTROPIX and Metapix, both in imaging and video. Neither appears in Network Optix’s own materials and neither could be independently confirmed here; see the internal verification notes before relying on them.

Education

No education could be established for Nathan Wheeler from any source consulted.