Michael Vuong, senior principal at Intuit Ventures, is one of our top 50 Emerging Leaders in corporate venturing for 2025.
Michael Vuong believes corporate venturers have to care about the industries in which they are investing. He joined the US accounting software company Intuit because it made life easier for small business owners.
“My mum was a small business owner and she did her bookkeeping with pen and paper. I saw how difficult this was for her,” he says.
Vuong, whose background was in investment banking, started in Intuit’s M&A team. In 2021, he created Intuit Ventures after submitting the business case to the company’s leadership. It immediately demanded a different skillset.
“One of the biggest adjustments I had to make was that in M&A you are partnered with a very big internal team. In venturing you are building relationships with people outside as much as people within,” he says.
Vuong has enjoyed taking Intuit Ventures from a concept to a reality, saying it is his colleagues who made the achievement special.
“The most rewarding part has been building out the team,” he says. “We are a team of three now. When we started it was really a one-man show. Now this is a durable thing and we have a vision of building the next great CVC team.”
“In venturing you are building relationships with people outside as much as people within”
Intuit Ventures targets startups in the series A to C stages, in areas related to its core business, such as B2B and consumer fintech, commerce, blockchain and Web3.
Out of the portfolio areas, he says “the intersection of AI and fintech is very cool”, especially with the implications it has for small businesses. He is also excited by the applications he sees for blockchain technologies.
“There are a lot of blockchain startups helping cross-border payments,” he says. “You would have thought large players such as Remitly and Wise would have solved this, but for small businesses it is still very challenging.”
Again, it comes down to small businesses. “[Corporate venturing] is not just about asset allocation. What makes it fulfilling is that it is solving things you have passion about.”
See the full list of Emerging Leaders 2025 here.
