Who Owns Venmo?

Venmo was founded in 2009 by Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail, who met as freshman roommates at the University of Pennsylvania. The idea emerged through several brainstorming sessions. At a jazz show in Philadelphia where a friend's band was playing, the two conceived of a way to buy an MP3 of the performance by sending a text message to the band. The concept evolved when Magdon-Ismail forgot his wallet during a trip to visit Kortina, and settling the debt through traditional means proved cumbersome. They began building a way to send money through mobile phones.

The original prototype sent money through text messages. Kortina and Magdon-Ismail eventually transitioned from SMS to a smartphone app. The name Venmo came from the Latin word vendere, meaning to sell, combined with mo for mobile. The founders wanted a name that was short, easy to spell, and memorable.

Venmo launched in beta in March 2012 after approximately three years of development and testing. The app distinguished itself from competitors through its social feed, which displayed payments between users with notes and emojis. This social element turned payment transactions into a shared experience among friends, which drove viral adoption among college students and young adults. Users could see what their friends were paying each other for, from rent and utilities to drinks and dinners, without seeing the dollar amounts.

Braintree, a Chicago-based payment processing company, acquired Venmo in August 2012 for $26.2 million. At the time, Braintree was processing approximately $8 billion in annual transactions. The acquisition gave Venmo access to Braintree's payment infrastructure and developer relationships, while Braintree gained a consumer-facing peer-to-peer product.

PayPal acquired Braintree in December 2013 for approximately $800 million. The deal brought Venmo under PayPal's ownership, giving the payment giant a popular peer-to-peer app that appealed to younger consumers. PayPal had been losing relevance among millennials and Gen Z users, and Venmo provided a product with strong cultural traction in that demographic.

Under PayPal ownership, Venmo grew rapidly. The service processed $3.9 billion in payments in 2015, $17.6 billion in 2016, and $230 billion in 2021. Venmo became a verb in American vernacular, synonymous with sending money to a friend. The social feed remained a defining feature, though Venmo introduced privacy controls after criticism that public transaction feeds could expose sensitive personal information.

Venmo added a debit card in 2018, allowing users to spend their Venmo balances at merchants. A credit card followed in 2020. The service added cryptocurrency trading in 2021, enabling users to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin. Venmo also expanded into merchant payments through Pay With Venmo, allowing businesses to accept Venmo as a payment method at checkout.

Monetization has been a persistent challenge. Peer-to-peer transfers between friends are free when funded by a bank account or debit card, generating no direct revenue. Venmo earns money from instant transfer fees (typically 1.75% of the transfer amount), debit and credit card transaction fees, merchant processing fees through Pay With Venmo, and cryptocurrency trading spreads. In February 2025, PayPal told investors that Venmo could reach $2 billion in revenue by 2027, up from approximately $900 million in 2021.

In 2025, Venmo revenue grew approximately 20% to $1.7 billion. Monetized monthly active users increased, and Pay With Venmo merchant volume expanded. PayPal partnered with companies including DoorDash, Starbucks, and Grubhub to increase merchant acceptance. Venmo debit card total payment volume was projected to grow at more than 20% compounded annually through 2027, while Pay With Venmo was expected to grow at double that rate.