2010 – Le VPN is born in Paris
It is in November 2010, in France, on the benches of the Ecole Centrale Paris engineering school that the project of what will become Le VPN was born. Le VPN was the first personal VPN service to be created in France back in 2010, and after 15 months of MVP (minimum viable product) development with minimum features and market testing in one geography (France) and one language (French) according to the Lean Startup movement, the proof of concept was validated, and it was time to take it global.
2012 – We go global
In February 2012, Le VPN registered its headquarters in Hong Kong to stay outside of data retention laws, and the founding team was joined by a second co-founder, an INSEAD MBA graduate, to lead Le VPN’s global expansion while keeping their leadership in the French market.
By May 2013 we added a 3rd security protocol (L2TP/IPSec) and 2 additional languages (English and Russian on top of French) to its VPN service, and their international coverage of VPN servers increased from 5 to 12 countries.
2014 – Our servers network expands to 50, and then 114 countries
In April 2014 the network of Le VPN servers increases to 50 countries, and then in September 2015 to 114 countries, becoming a VPN provider with the largest servers’ network at that time. We also released that year a custom-made VPN software in partnership with Sparklabs’ Viscosity and launched the first version of the Le VPN app for iOS. The use of Le VPN service also became available on 2 devices at the same time.
2015 – HybridVPN is invented to revolutionize media streaming
In February 2015 Le VPN team invented a new feature called HybridVPN which consists of combining the SmartDNS service for a list of preselected media and TV channels, and the VPN connection of the rest of the online activities. This is when we also launched our VPN service in Spanish to serve the increasing numbers of our users from Spain and Latin America.
In February 2016 Le VPN partnered with Keezel, a Dutch startup that raised over 1 mln euros via an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, and became one of their 3 VPN partners to provide VPN service to the users of Keezel devices.
2017 – Le VPN apps for iOS and Android are born
In early 2017 Le VPN started developing and releasing our own proprietary VPN software and apps for the most commonly used operating systems and in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian). We released our mac software in March 2017, then Windows in April 2017, the iOS app in May 2017, and the Android app in July 2017.
2018 – Fighting for digital freedom in the Digital Resistance movement
In April 2018 Le VPN joined the Digital Resistance movement led by Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram messaging up, fighting for digital freedom in Russia. Our active involvement in Digital Resistance together with other anti-censorship tech companies, plus our outspoken support of Russia-based users dealing with strict internet censorship cost us our website ban on the territory of Russia. That is when we added a new offline module in our apps to allow users from strict censorship countries to connect through Le VPN even in restricted networks. The Russian authorities’ blocking of Le VPN website as well as the Telegram app stopped in June 2020 when the Digital Resistance movement celebrated their victory in Russia.
2019 – Acquisition of My Private Network.
In February 2019, Le VPN acquired another VPN provider, My Private Network, and integrated all its users into Le VPN service, expanding further into the UK market. By popular demand, we also reinforced the UK segment with faster and more reliable servers in different locations in the UK (including the Big British media Company – not to name any names…)! A new Support Team took over to satisfy the needs of our grown customer base, and their hard work paid off with Trustpilot reviews reaching 4.6 out of 5 on average for 2019.
Le VPN app for Amazon Fire TV and Firestick was launched on Amazon. The number of countries with Le VPN servers increased to 120; and the SmartDNS’ and HybridVPN’s media selection increased to over 100 channels and media resources in 9 countries.
2020 – Le VPN celebrates its 10th Birthday.
Le VPN service and apps keep evolving and now include a new WireGuard protocol (a registered trademark of Jason A. Donenfeld.). OpenVPN certificates are also updated for more protection, and the OpenVPN connection ports selection becomes available in the Android app. A 2-factor authentication is implemented for the Le VPN Client Area, making our VPN service even more secure without diminishing the service.
As the coronavirus takes over the world, Le VPN joins forces and also encourages our clients to donate their processing power for the COVID-19 research via the Folding@Home project. Learn more about our Values and the Causes we fight for here.
For our 10th Birthday on November 10th, we are celebrating not only this exciting journey that started back in 2010 and our amazing and growing team who made it happen, but also our loyal clients from practically every corner of the world who now rate us 4.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot! Thank you all for your contribution to our success!