Telegram was started in 2013 by the Durov brother (Nikolai Durov and Pavel Durov). The two brothers were previosuly known to have started the Russian social network VK, which was eventually bought over by the Mail.ru group.
After coming out of VK, the two brothers employed a systematic approach to creating the Telegram messenger, with Nikolai focussing on the MTProto Protocol, which is the backbone of the Telegram Messenger, and Pavel focussing on the financial aspects by providing funds from his Digital fortress fund and bringing on board his business partner at the time, Axel Neff, as a second co founder.
