Biography

Michael Mignano is a venture capitalist, technology executive, and entrepreneur. He currently serves as a partner at Lightspeed, a global venture capital firm and one of the earliest investors in companies like Snap, Epic Games, Nest, Grubhub, Giphy, Affirm, and many others. Michael previously served as Head of Talk for Spotify, responsible for leading the podcast, live, and video strategies for the world’s leading audio streaming platform. Prior to this, Michael co-founded Anchor in 2015, which was acquired by Spotify in 2019, and is now the world’s largest podcasting platform.

Michael is also an active angel investor and advisor to 50+ early stage, technology-enabled companies, including Cameo, Coda, The Infatuation (acquired by $JPM), Living Carbon, Acquire.com, Nexhealth, Parade, Pawp, Pipe, Sandbox VR, Stir, Ten Little, Universe, XMTP, and several others that have yet to launch.

Michael’s work focuses on empowering people to express themselves creatively across a variety of mediums, including podcasts, photos, music, and software. In 2019, Michael was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the most influential young people in business in their annual 40 Under 40 List.

Prior to founding Anchor, Michael served as VP of Product for Aviary, growing the photo editing platform’s audience to over 100 million creators before being acquired by Adobe in 2014. He previously led Digital Product Development for Atlantic Records after starting his career as a consultant.

Michael studied Computer Science at the University of Delaware. Originally from New York, Michael spends most of my time in Hoboken, New Jersey with his wife Carrie, their two daughters, and a cat named Gizmo.