Swiss start-up sets new record on Indiegogo

ProtonMail is a new email service that is developed by a team of scientists working at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. The service protects people around the world from the mass surveillance that is currently being perpetrated by governments and corporations around the world. Because of end-to-end encryption, the data of the users is already encrypted by the time it reaches the ProtonMail servers. The company has no access to the user’s messages, and since ProtonMail cannot decrypt them, the start-up cannot share them with third parties. For maximum security and privacy, ProtonMail owns, runs, and operates its own hardware within secured datacenters in Switzerland.

The ProtonMail beta launched in May. The expansion of the capacities required a large upfront capital investment in servers. For financing the expansion the team has decided to start a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. The campaign was a huge success. ProtonMail generated more than USD550’000.

According to a tweet of the company the service can be released very soon. In addition ProtonMail is working on iOS and Android mobile apps.

ProtonMail was founded in summer 2013 at CERN by scientists who were drawn together by a shared vision of a more secure and private Internet. Early ProtonMail hackathons were held at the famous CERN Restaurant One. The service is developed both at CERN and MIT and the company is headquartered in Geneva.