Vera Equity – a venture capital firm supporting early-stage companies through its unique access to talent – announced it has raised a $20 million fund and invested in 20 innovative fintech startups to date. The firm was co-founded by Michael Vaughan, former COO at Venmo; Jonathan Pomeranz, True Search partner and co-head of the Financial Services Practice; and True co-CEOs Joe Riggione and Brad Stadler. With this first fund, the team is focused on backing exceptional fintech entrepreneurs at the pre-seed and seed stages, offering them capital alongside unparalleled fintech talent and operations advisory.
The firm has backed 20 teams so far, including founder Lamine Zarrad (former co-founder of small business fintech Joust) who is on a mission to simplify consumer credit building at StellarFi, and Jen Glaspie (former Capital One) who started Tandym to provide private label card programs for online SMBs. Vera has also helped to incubate businesses alongside successful entrepreneurs from Betterment, Acorns, Vouch Insurance, and Roofstock.
Vera’s anchor investor is True, which is the global platform of innovative talent management products and executive search services. And Vera co-founder Jon Pomeranz also leads True’s Fintech Practice, which is the largest in the U.S. and has partners across True’s global offices. The strength of True’s talent pool and industry expertise enables Vera to help portfolio companies expand their networks and land important leadership hires.
Other select Vera LPs include individuals at Foundation Capital, Infinity Ventures, LLR, and Flexpoint Ford; founders and operators from companies Plaid, Cadre, and Coinbase; and institutions like Tiger Global Management, Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Fin Capital, and Oak HC/FT Partners.
Mike Vaughan, Founding Partner, Vera Equity — Vaughan is an accomplished fintech operator, investor, and advisor. By the end of Vaughan’s tenure as Chief Operating Officer at Venmo, the platform had grown to 40 million active users and a $300 million annual revenue run rate.
Jonathan Pomeranz, Founding Partner, Vera Equity — Pomeranz is a leader in financial services executive search, working with the world’s premier fintech companies, founders, and investors to identify and recruit board and senior management teams. Since joining True Search in 2018 as a founding member of the fintech practice, Pomeranz has built a team of more than 50 people bringing in >$50M in revenue.
Brad Stadler & Joe Riggione, co-CEOs and co-founders, True — Brad and Joe founded True, a global platform of human capital products and services with offices around the world. And they set the firm’s strategic direction and oversee the management of its subsidiary brands.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our team’s backgrounds and networks allow Vera to provide founders with differentiated and highly valuable talent introductions and operational guidance. We identify attractive investment opportunities through our confidence in the team and their product vision, and partner with our founders as they get off the ground, build initial traction and prepare for their next institutional round.”
— Michael Vaughan
“The key to success in early-stage entrepreneurship is having the right team in place to craft and execute on the vision. With our first fund we have been able to leverage True’s existing networks in the global technology, financial services, and fintech spaces to prove out a playbook that we hope will be repeatable across other sectors where True has a presence.”
— Brad Stadler, co-CEO and co-founder of True
