What is Proton Chain's origin story?

Proton was developed as a joint effort by two companies: Metal and Lynx. Both companies share a vision of making crypto more accessible to everyday consumers, and both have independently made significant progress towards that goal.

Metal has built a compliant, consumer friendly platform for peer to peer payments. Lynx has developed an app-focused blockchain. Proton combines the elements of both efforts into a single unified offering.
Together, it is a technical team of entrepreneurs that rapidly turn ideas into working products ready for real-world application.

Source: Protonchain.com