Firsty Wins Best New MVNO at the 2026 MVNO Nation Global Awards

Alicante, Nov 2026

Firsty has won Best New MVNO at the 2026 MVNO Nation Global Awards. The award marks a milestone in the company's journey, Firsty started with a free travel eSIM for consumers, became the connectivity layer powering apps like Uber and Grab, and today builds telecom infrastructure that enables others to launch and scale their own mobile services.

"Winning Best New MVNO means a lot to the whole team," said Vince Vissers, co-founder and CEO of Firsty. "We left with fresh ideas, new connections and a trophy we're proud to bring home. Being recognized by the industry we set out to change tells us the journey is working."

What makes Firsty an unusual MVNO is that it never set out to be just one. Instead of renting capacity from a single carrier, the company built its own telecom stack and connected over 600 local carriers into one global platform, with real-time network switching that always puts users on the best available network. That's how one eSIM can work in 176 countries, start with free ad-supported data, and activate in minutes with no contracts or SIM swaps. More than 1.4M million people now use it.

The same stack is what Firsty now hands to others. Ride-hailing apps, banks, and device makers plug into one integration and launch mobile data, calling, and local numbers under their own brand, effectively becoming MVNOs themselves, without carrier deals or telecom complexity. That's what the jury recognized in the Best New MVNO, a newcomer that doesn't just run its own mobile service, but makes it possible for anyone to launch and scale theirs.

"Awards are nice, but the conversations around them are nicer," said Gauthier Thierens, co-founder and CTO of Firsty. "The MVNO Nation team brought together so many of the people shaping this industry, and we're grateful to them and to the jury for recognising our work. And yes, we were the only ones on stage without suits. Some things never change."

Firsty. You're free to connect.