Michael Mignano is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a venture capitalist at Lightspeed, the co-founder of the podcasting platform

Anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...

, and former head of Spotify's talk audio (podcasts, live, and video) business. In 2019, Mignano was regarded by Fortune Magazine as one of the most influential young people in business in their annual "40 under 40" list. Mignano studied Computer Science at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

Business career

Mignano began his career in the music industry at

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over the course of its first two decades, starting from the release of its first recor ...

before transitioning into tech, first at photo-sharing platform

Aviary An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds, although bats may also be considered for display. Unlike birdcages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where Bird flight, they can fly; hence, aviaries are also sometimes known as flig ...

and then

Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

. In 2016, after struggling to produce podcasts on his own, he started

to make it easier for aspiring creators to broadcast audio with co-founder, Nir Zicherman. The pair received financial backing from a variety of venture capitalists, including Accel,

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

's venture arm GV, and the co-founders' former boss from Adobe, Scott Belsky. In February 2019, Anchor was acquired by

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

for more than $150M and Mignano became responsible for overseeing the Swedish audio streaming company podcast tech business, as well as their expansion into video and live audio. Under Mignano's leadership, Anchor has grown to power more than 75% of all podcasts. In 2022, after announcing he'd be leaving Spotify to focus on early stage tech investing, Mignano introduced a new feature enabling users to create, edit, and share podcasts directly in the Spotify app. In 2022, it was announced that Mignano would be joining the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Lightspeed. He has invested in AI companies including Pika Labs, Granola, and TollBit. In 2024, Mignano and his former Anchor Co-Founder launched a new AI education company, Oboe.

Speaking

In 2019, Mignano was featured as one of the main keynote speakers at the

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

festival in Austin, TX.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mignano, Michael Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Spotify people American company founders American businesspeople in the online media industry Adobe Inc. people American venture capitalists Angel investors