Vercel Inc.
Company History
Vercel History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2015 in San Francisco, California, United States
When was Vercel founded?
Vercel was founded in 2015 in San Francisco, California, United States by Guillermo Rauch, making it 11 years old.
- Founded
- 2015
- Founding place
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Founders
- Guillermo Rauch
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Milestones documented
- 9 (2015–2026)
- Current CEO
- Guillermo Rauch
- Acquisitions
- 5
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Founded as ZEIT |
| 2016 | Next.js open-sourced |
| 2020 | Renamed Vercel |
| 2021 | $102M Series C; Turborepo acquired |
| 2022 | Acquired Splitbee |
| 2023 | v0 and AI SDK launched |
| 2024 | $250M round at $3.25B |
| 2025 | $300M Series F at $9.3B |
| 2026 | Security breach, Better Auth acquisition |
- Where was Vercel founded?
- Vercel was founded in San Francisco, California, United States in 2015.
- Who founded Vercel?
- Vercel was founded by Guillermo Rauch.
- When did Vercel start?
- Vercel was founded in 2015.
- How old is Vercel?
- Vercel is 11 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
Before Vercel, Guillermo Rauch, who grew up in Argentina, was known in the JavaScript community for creating Socket.IO, a real-time communication library. In 2015 he founded ZEIT in San Francisco to make deploying web code as simple as running one command. In 2016 ZEIT open-sourced Next.js, a React framework with server-side rendering, and the framework became the company's main source of developer adoption. In April 2020 ZEIT became Vercel and kept its triangle logo.
Founders
Guillermo Rauch
Guillermo Rauch founded ZEIT in San Francisco in 2015 and has been CEO since. ZEIT launched the Now deployment tool and open-sourced Next.js in 2016, then renamed itself Vercel in April 2020. Under Rauch, Vercel added v0 and the AI SDK in 2023 and raised its Series F at a $9.3 billion valuation in 2025. Guillermo Rauch was born in 1990.
Key Milestones
Next.js open-sourced
ZEIT released Next.js, a React framework with server-side rendering.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$102M Series C; Turborepo acquired
Raised a $102 million Series C in June and acquired the Turborepo build tool in December.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgv0 and AI SDK launched
Released the v0 prompt-based app builder and the open-source AI SDK for JavaScript and TypeScript.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$250M round at $3.25B
Raised $250 million in May 2024 at a $3.25 billion valuation.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$300M Series F at $9.3B
Closed a Series F co-led by Accel and GIC at a $9.3 billion post-money valuation; acquired Tremor and NuxtLabs.
Source: businesswire.comSecurity breach, Better Auth acquisition
Disclosed an April security incident tied to a compromised third-party AI tool and acquired Better Auth in July.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgMajor Acquisitions
Turborepo
2021Monorepo build system for JavaScript and TypeScript, acquired in December 2021.
Splitbee
2022Web analytics startup acquired in October 2022.
Tremor
2025Open-source React component library for charts and dashboards, acquired in January 2025.
NuxtLabs
2025Company behind the Nuxt web framework, acquired in July 2025.
Better Auth
2026Open-source authentication library, acquired in July 2026.
Keep researching Vercel
Vercel Company History FAQ
When, where, and by whom was Vercel founded?
Vercel was founded in November 2015 in San Francisco, California, under the original name ZEIT, by open-source developer Guillermo Rauch alongside co-founders Tony Kovanen and Naoyuki Kanezawa.
What was ZEIT's original product and vision in 2015?
ZEIT launched with "Now," a command-line tool that allowed developers to deploy Node.js and static web applications to the cloud instantly with a single command (`now`), eliminating complex server provisioning.
When was Next.js released and how did it change the web development industry?
ZEIT open-sourced Next.js in October 2016 to solve React's search-engine indexing and performance limitations, introducing server-side rendering (SSR) and hybrid static site generation (SSG) that rapidly became the web standard.
Why did ZEIT rebrand to Vercel in April 2020?
In April 2020, the company rebranded from ZEIT to Vercel (a blend of "versatile" and "accelerate") to shed its niche CLI image and present an enterprise-ready cloud platform built specifically for modern frontend frameworks.
What venture capital firms backed Vercel's early growth?
Vercel raised early financing from CRV and Bedrock Capital, followed by a $102 million Series C led by Bedrock in 2021 and Series D and E rounds led by Accel and GV, scaling its developer cloud globally.
What was the landmark acquisition of Turborepo in 2021?
In December 2021, Vercel acquired Turborepo, a high-performance build system for JavaScript and TypeScript monorepos created by Jared Palmer, later expanding it into the Rust-based bundler Turbopack.
What was the launch of v0.dev in late 2023?
In September 2023, Vercel launched v0, a groundbreaking generative AI web application builder that converts natural language text prompts into production-ready React components using Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui.
What was Vercel's Series E funding round in May 2024?
In May 2024, Vercel raised $250 million in Series E funding at a $3.25 billion valuation, led by Accel, to accelerate enterprise sales and scale generative AI infrastructure.
What was the $300 million Series F financing at a $9.3 billion valuation in September 2025?
In September 2025, Vercel closed a $300 million Series F financing co-led by Accel and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC, nearly tripling its valuation to $9.3 billion alongside a shareholder tender offer.
How did Vercel expand into the Vue.js ecosystem with NuxtLabs in 2025?
In July 2025, Vercel acquired NuxtLabs, the company behind the popular Vue-based Nuxt web framework, expanding its platform dominance beyond React to the broader multi-framework web ecosystem.
How fast did Vercel's run-rate revenue scale from 2024 to 2026?
Vercel's annualized revenue surged from approximately $100 million in early 2024 to $340 million in February 2026, and reached roughly $600 million by September 2026—a 148% year-over-year expansion driven by AI coding agents.
What is Vercel's market positioning today?
Vercel is the defining "AI Cloud" and Frontend Cloud platform, powering millions of web applications, leading generative UI creation via v0, and hosting major enterprises like OpenAI, The Washington Post, and Uber.
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