LogMeIn went public in July 2009, when almost no tech company dared to. The financial crisis had shut the IPO window for more than a year. LogMeIn walked through anyway with a simple product: open a browser, log in, and control your computer at home or the office as if you sat in front of it. A free version pulled in users. Businesses and IT departments paid for more. Its engineers worked out of Budapest.

Born in Budapest

Michael Simon founded LogMeIn in February 2003 with Marton Anka, who became its chief technology officer. Simon had founded Uproar, an online game show company, in 1995. Anka had run 3am Labs, a Hungarian software developer. Their bet was a freemium model. Give away basic remote access, win a crowd of users, and sell paid versions with more features to professionals and IT teams. Hungary supplied the engineers, and the company was based near Boston.

Sixteen Dollars to GoTo

LogMeIn priced its IPO at $16 a share on July 1, 2009, on Nasdaq. It grew past remote access into password management with LastPass and, in 2017, merged with Citrix's GoTo business, which included GoToMeeting. In 2020 Francisco Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital took LogMeIn private for $86.05 a share in cash. Its shares left Nasdaq in August 2020. The company later renamed itself GoTo.

Cover: Man with Lantern in Doorway, Adriaen van Ostade. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a figure at an open door (remote access).