Michael Vaughan

Co-Founder and General Partner (GP)

2021 - Current

Vera Equity is an early stage venture capital firm backing awesome entrepreneurs and innovative ideas at the pre-seed and seed stages. Vera offers founders not just access to capital, but also operations advisory and connections to transformative talent. The firm’s first fund has a US-focused fintech strategy, serving as a playbook for future expansion across sectors.

Operating Partner

2022

As an Operating Partner, I'm focusing on the global fintech sector across both consumer and enterprise software.

Mentor to Startup Founder/CEOs

2019

I've had the privilege to mentor several great founders and be part of this amazing community that First Round has created.

Board Member

2019 - 2023

Venture Partner

2019 - 2022

Board Member

2020 - 2021

Board Member

2019 - 2020

Served as an independent board member until Square acquired the company in June 2020.

Venmo, Chief Operating Officer

2013 - 2019

Chief Operating Officer

2011 - 2019

As COO at Venmo for 8+ years, I helped lead the business from the ground floor to 40+ million active users, $300 million revenue annual run rate and a forecast of $100 billion in payments in 2019. Venmo has been recognized by Fortune as a global breakthrough brand, by TIME as a Top 50 App, by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Finance and Social Media and consistently ranks in the top 20 of all free apps in the iOS App Store. After I joined the five-person Venmo team in 2011, we were acquired by Braintree in 2012 and then by PayPal in 2013 as part of the $800 million Braintree deal. Venmo was originally venture backed by Accel, RRE, Greycroft and Lerer among others.

Vice President of Business Development & Sales

2008 - 2011

Grew revenue 850% cumulatively over three years to gain the #7 spot on the 2011 Philadelphia 100 list of fastest growing private companies in addition to a spot on the 2011 Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies nationwide.