What started as a simple way to send money between friends has evolved into a cultural phenomenon backed by over 90 million users. With Venmo’s net worth estimated at $38 billion, its story provides valuable lessons in innovation and leveraging social elements to disrupt an industry.
At Business2Community, we’ve consulted a wide range of sources to provide a comprehensive overview of Venmo’s net worth and look at exactly how it reached this point. Read on to discover the company’s key milestones, revenue, controversies, and more.
Venmo Key Company Data
Date Founded: April 2009
Founded By: Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail
Current CEO: Alex Chriss (PayPal CEO)
Industries: Fintech, mobile payments, peer-to-peer technology
Venmo Net Worth: $38 billion
Venmo Stock Ticker: N/A
Dividend Yield: 0%
What is Venmo’s Net Worth?
As a subsidiary of PayPal rather than a publicly traded company, Venmo doesn’t have a traditional net worth or market capitalization that can be calculated using share price and outstanding shares. However, based on an independent valuation conducted in 2020, Venmo’s net worth was around $38 billion.
This Venmo valuation reflects the app’s remarkable growth from a modest net worth of $100 million in 2013. Mirroring its valuation, Venmo’s transaction payment volume has skyrocketed from $2.3 billion in 2014 to over $244 billion in recent years.
PayPal provides insights into Venmo’s performance primarily through reports on the app’s transaction volume. These updates are released quarterly, while a summary of Venmo’s annual contribution to PayPal’s bottom line is typically published in February’s end-of-year financial results.
Venmo Revenue
While its core peer-to-peer functionality is free, Venmo generates revenue through:
- Pay with Venmo or charging merchants for processing transactions.
- Charging users when they withdraw money instantly.
- Interchange and withdrawal fees.
- Interest on credit card balances.
- Cash checking services.
- Charging fees on cryptocurrency transactions.
- Referral commissions from its cashback program.
In 2017, Venmo’s annual revenue was $160 million. By 2020, Venmo’s revenue nearly tripled to $450 million. Following the introduction of a host of new features and the steady growth of its user base, Venmo delivered revenue of $850 million in 2021.
The upward trend continued in 2022, with PayPal announcing that Venmo had become profitable on a run-rate basis. Additionally, Venmo’s contribution to PayPal’s revenues in 2022 hit $935 million, or 3.4% of PayPal’s total revenue. This marked a significant milestone in Venmo’s journey and highlighted the app’s growing importance within PayPal’s asset portfolio.
While PayPal hasn’t released official revenue figures for Venmo in 2023, online estimates suggest that Venmo’s revenue may have reached a record $2.4 billion.
Here is a breakdown of Venmo’s estimated revenue over the years:
| Year | Revenue ($ millions) |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 160 |
| 2018 | 200 |
| 2019 | 300 |
| 2020 | 450 |
| 2021 | 850 |
| 2022 | 935 |
| 2023 | 2,400 |
Who Owns Venmo?
Venmo is owned by PayPal, which is a publicly traded company. The global payments giant acquired Venmo when it purchased online payments provider Braintree (which included Venmo) for $800 million in 2014. To fund its early operations, Venmo raised $100,000 in a debt financing round. By 2010, the company had attracted the interest of high-profile investors, raising $1.2 million in a seed round led by RRE Ventures.
Other key investors included Betaworks, Lerer Ventures, Founder Collective, and angel investors Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Dave Morin (founder of Path), and Sam Lessin (Drop.io CEO).
In August 2011, the company raised an undisclosed amount through a Series A funding round. A year after its public launch, Venmo was acquired by Braintree for $26.2 million. With Venmo worth around $100 million in 2014, it came under the ownership of PayPal through the acquisition of Braintree.
PayPal’s three biggest institutional shareholders are:
- Vanguard Group, with 8.58%
- Blackrock Inc., with 7.12%
- State Street Corporation, with 4.3%
Who is the Venmo CEO?
The CEO of Venmo is Alex Chriss, President and Chief Executive of Venmo’s parent company PayPal. Appointed in 2023, Chriss succeeded Dan Schulman, who served as PayPal’s CEO for nine years. Before PayPal bought Venmo, Bryan Johnson was the CEO of Braintree Venmo. Venmo founder Andrew Kortina had led the company.
With over 19 years of experience in the fintech sector and a track record of driving growth and innovation, Chriss plans to increase both Venmo’s market share and revenue, which has been a key challenge for PayPal.
Alex Chriss received a total compensation package of $41.92 million for his first year as CEO. The majority of this package, $41.14 million, came in the form of a stock award.
The CEO’s cash compensation was $800,000 and was made up of a salary of $302,885, an incentive plan payment of $164,384, and $311,845 in other compensation.
Venmo’s Company History
Venmo is a US-based mobile payment app owned by PayPal. Combining peer-to-peer payment technology (P2P) with social elements, the app allows users to send and receive money online, split expenses, and make purchases.
The app’s key competitors include other mobile payment services such as Cash App, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Zelle. However, Venmo holds a significant share of the market, particularly among Millennials and Gen Zers. This demographic has even adopted “Venmo” as a verb, using the phrase “I’ll Venmo you” to refer to P2P financial transactions.
As of 2024:
- Over 90 million people use Venmo.
- More than 2 million merchants accept Venmo.
- Venmo users account for 18% of the global crypto wallet with payment features market.
- Users average five transactions per month on Venmo.
Below, we explore Venmo’s journey to becoming a key player in the fintech industry.
2009-2013: Venmo Takes Off
Venmo was founded in 2009 as a simple way for founders Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail to pay each other without having to exchange cash.
The earliest version of their payment solution was SMS based, allowing the duo to send notes alongside payments to keep track of their financial transactions. The mobile payment solution went through several iterations and upgrades before its official launch on June 5, 2012.
After securing seed funding, the Venmo app took off, attracting a wave of Millennial users. It became the perfect option to pay friends back or split bills seamlessly. However, while growth was promising, Venmo was losing money and needed significant investment to break even. The app’s lifeline came through a $26 million acquisition deal with Braintree in 2012 and Braintree’s subsequent acquisition by PayPal in 2013.
2014-2018: Venmo Joins PayPal
The app saw steep growth in 2014, with estimates placing Venmo transaction volume at over $1 billion annually. This was due to features such as Venmo Touch and Venmo Button, which enabled users to store their credit card information or share tips and donations using Venmo. By 2015, Venmo was processing over $7.5 billion in total payment volume.
Despite Venmo’s growth, the app wasn’t making much revenue for PayPal. To turn this around, PayPal announced “Pay with Venmo” or Venmo payments to expand its capabilities to merchants and break into the lucrative mobile ecommerce space.
Key Venmo statistics released in 2017 pegged Venmo users at close to 9 million. That year, total payment volume hit $17.6 billion, more than double that of the previous year. Most users (81%) were Millennials, placing the app 10 percentage points ahead of social darling Snapchat.
In 2018, Venmo generated around $200 million in revenue. By then, the average Venmo user used the app four to five times a week, with an average transaction amount of $50. Driving the app’s growth was the Venmo card, a physical debit card linked to the user’s Venmo account which saw 320% month-over-month growth in the third quarter of the year.
2019-2022: Venmo Adoption Soars
In 2019, Venmo had over 40 million active users. Venmo customers generated over $100 billion in Venmo transactions or around 13% of PayPal’s total payment volume. Merchant acceptance levels increased and with over two million merchants now accepting Venmo, the app clocked over $300 million in revenue.
As a result of the pandemic, new sign-ups surged by 32% to over 70 million in 2020. Building on these gains, Venmo rolled out a record number of solutions for its growing user base in 2021, including:
- Updated Venmo Credit card payments
- Buy, holding, and selling crypto on Venmo
- Cashing a check on Venmo
- Venmo Business Profiles
Consequently, Venmo’s total payment volume increased by 44% to $230 billion. That year, Venmo’s annual payment volume contributed to over 20% of PayPal’s total payment volume.
By 2022, Venmo’s user base had increased by 50% to nearly 90 million accounts. The platform’s focus on merchants continued to pay off, with over 1.5 million businesses making use of its commerce solutions. Notably, Venmo’s commerce payment volume increased by 250%.
2023 – Present: Venmo Diversifies
By 2023, Venmo’s active users exceeded 90 million. Total payment volume had also increased by 9% year-over-year and now accounted for 18% of PayPal’s TPV.
In a strategic move to diversify its offerings, the company partnered with Hallmark, enabling users to send money securely in physical cards. Additionally, Venmo introduced customizable virtual gift cards from popular brands like Starbucks and Sephora.
To enhance its cryptocurrency capabilities, Venmo added features allowing users to transfer cryptocurrency to friends and family on Venmo and other wallets and exchanges in the crypto ecosystem.
The app also launched Venmo Groups, simplifying the process of tracking, splitting, and managing multiple or ongoing expenses with friends, family, roommates, partners, and more.
In January 2024, Venmo announced improvements to Venmo Business profiles. New features included subscribe buttons, profile rankings, and promotional tools, offering businesses powerful ways to drive traffic, generate sales, and increase visibility within the Venmo app.
As of Q1 2024, Venmo’s payment volume was up by 8%. Looking ahead, the platform is poised for continued growth, with annual transaction values projected to reach $538.88 billion by 2026.
Venmo Controversies
While Venmo has generally maintained a positive reputation, its most notable controversies have centered around the platform’s privacy settings and collection processes.
Deceptive Privacy Practices
In 2016, The Federal Trade Commission FTC launched an investigation into whether Venmo engaged in deceptive or unfair practices.
By 2018, it was determined that Venmo had misled consumers about the extent to which they could control the privacy of their transactions.
The company eventually settled with the FTC and while it didn’t pay a fine, Venmo agreed to additional compliance and oversight measures such as clearer privacy policies and obtaining user consent for certain data practices.
Public By Default Settings
From 2016 to 2021, all Venmo transactions were public by default. While it was part of Venmo’s unique selling point, it attracted negative press for potentially enabling stalking, social engineering, ransom demands, and other privacy violations.
The issue escalated in 2019 when BuzzFeed reporters discovered President Biden’s Venmo account. In under ten minutes, they managed to map out the president’s entire network of close contacts, including family members and White House officials.
The high-profile privacy breach, which resulted in President Biden and his wife deleting their accounts, prompted Venmo to discreetly add a new setting that allowed users to make their friend lists private.
However, it wasn’t until 2021 that Venmo took more decisive action. That year, the company finally changed its default settings to private, shut down the “Global Feed” and removed the ability to view strangers’ transactions.
Unfair Collection Practices
That same year, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau began an investigation into unauthorized funds transfers and collections processes. This came as Venmo received negative press for pursuing collections against scam victims and maintaining its collection rate even during the pandemic.
Venmo defended its practices, stating that its user agreement detailed its potential use of collections and that it had complied with all applicable laws when engaging in collection activities.
What Can We Learn From Venmo?
With its ability to adapt to user needs, integrate new technologies, and capitalize on the shift toward digital payments, Venmo has evolved into one of the most popular mobile payment solutions in the US. The app’s remarkable rise to prominence highlights the value of identifying a gap in the market and addressing it at scale.
While originally aimed at competing with fintech giants like PayPal, Venmo’s founders remained open to partnership and acquisition opportunities. Their flexibility proved crucial, as strategic acquisitions — first by Braintree, then by PayPal — provided the funding and exposure needed to establish Venmo as a key player in the mobile payments industry. This highlights how strategic partnerships or acquisitions can provide the resources to accelerate a startup’s growth.
By incorporating social elements such as splitting bills with friends and social feeds, Venmo has emerged as the go-to payment method for younger US consumers. The app’s growth strategy exemplifies the power of integrating social features into products and building services that become more valuable as a user base expands.
Over the years, Venmo has diversified its business model to serve both individuals and businesses. The company has capitalized on PayPal’s vast user base and reach to grow its own audience while expanding beyond a social digital wallet to increase adoption and monetize through additional services and features.
Looking ahead, the platform is poised for continued success, with annual transaction values projected to reach $538.88 billion by 2026. However, as Venmo pursues growth, it is likely to face greater regulatory scrutiny and other marketplace-related complexities.
To that end, the company must work to balance its growth goals with enhanced security measures and transparency. By prioritizing these areas, Venmo will not only increase consumer trust but also attract a broader demographic, including older US consumers who may be more cautious about adopting new financial technologies.