In 2009, Céline Lazorthes, as a school project, was looking for a way to collect money from different people online to buy gifts or items together. In her search for the right platform, she wasn't able to find a solution and decided to create a platform by herself that would allow her to do so.

Leetchi was born in 2009 and started to take off by the ingenuity of each time when you create a money pot that you can invite friends to the platform too.

In the early days it was a typical start-up. However the ability to collect money from different sources, hold that money (escrow), and then pay-out to a specific user needed a specific payment solution.

In a search for the right solution, she quickly realised that no-such solution was available on the market and with her team created its own technology to facilitate these money flows.

In search to be able to offer payment services, they found the solution in Luxembourg. Where during this time, France was not able to provide payment service licenses, Luxembourg was.

In 2013, MANGOPAY was born and created, registered in Luxembourg with an E-Money institution license (EMI).

The name “MANGOPAY” was created by a desire to stay within the fruit family (after Leetchi) and as other successful companies on the market (Apple, Orange, etc.), and “MANGO” was the right combination with “Pay”. Sometimes it's just that simple.

The E-Money institution license from Luxembourg enabled MANGOPAY to offer payment services, escrow facilities, KYC services and e-wallet functionalities while passporting the solution to the other 31 countries in the Economic European union to attract and work with platforms there.