Company:Vercel

From HandWiki
Vercel Inc.
FormerlyZEIT (2015–2020)
TypePrivate
Industry
Founded2015; 11 years ago (2015)
FounderGuillermo Rauch
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
,
U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Guillermo Rauch (CEO)
Number of employees
550 (2025)[1]
Websitevercel.com

Vercel Inc. is an American cloud application company. The company created and maintains the Next.js web development framework.[2]

Vercel provides developer tools, frameworks, and cloud infrastructure to build and maintain websites.[3] It is the maker of v0, an AI tool for developing websites,[4] and AI SDK. [5] In September 2025, Vercel raised $300 million in a Series F funding round co-led by Accel and GIC, valuing the company at $9.3 billion.[6] The company maintains a free and open-source library for building AI-generated products.[7] According to W3Techs, Vercel is used as hosting provider by 1.9% of all websites.[8]

History

Vercel was founded by Guillermo Rauch in 2015 as ZEIT.[9][10] Rauch had previously created the realtime event-driven communication library Socket.IO[11] and Next.js, the open source framework that Vercel optimized for their platform.[2] ZEIT was rebranded to Vercel in April 2020, although it retained the company's triangular logo.[9][12]

In June 2021, Vercel raised $102 million in a Series C funding round.[13] In 2023, Vercel released an AI web development tool called v0 that creates web applications with natural language prompts;[4] it won a 2025 Webby Award for developer tools.[14] In 2023, Vercel released a software development kit called AI SDK[15] designed to allow developers to build conversational streaming interfaces in JavaScript and TypeScript.[16] In May 2024, Vercel raised $250 million in a funding round which valued the company at $3.25 billion.[4] Later, in September 2025, the company raised a $300 million Series F, receiving a valuation of $9.3 billion.[17]

In March 2026, Vercel appointed Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp and creator of Terraform, Vagrant, and Ghostty, a performant terminal emulator, to its board of directors.[18]

2026 breach

On April 19, 2026, Vercel disclosed a security breach in which certain internal systems were accessed by unauthorized actors. According to the company, the breach originated from the third-party AI tool Context.ai being compromised,[19][20] which, according to cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock, originated from Lumma Stealer malware infecting an employee's computer after they tried downloading Roblox cheat scripts.[21] The attacker breached a Vercel employee's Google Workspace account, accessing "some Vercel environments and environment variables that were not marked as 'sensitive'". A threat actor claiming to be part of ShinyHunters claimed responsibility and offered stolen data for sale at $2 million on BreachForums, though the post was later deleted and the group reportedly denied involvement.[22][23]

Acquisitions

Vercel has acquired a number of other companies:

  • in December 2021, Vercel acquired Turborepo.[24]
  • in October 2022, Vercel acquired Splitbee.[25]
  • in January 2025, Vercel acquired Tremor.[26]
  • in July 2025, Vercel acquired NuxtLabs, the creator of the popular web framework Nuxt.[27][28]
  • in July 2026, Vercel acquired Better Auth.[29]

Architecture

Vercel's architecture is built around composable architecture, and deployments are handled through Git repositories, the Vercel CLI, or the Vercel REST API. Vercel is a member of the MACH Alliance.

Deployments through Vercel are handled through Git repositories, with support for GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket repositories.[b 1] Deployments are, by default, automatically given a subdomain under the vercel.app domain,[30] although Vercel offers support for custom domains for deployments.[b 1]

Vercel's infrastructure uses Amazon Web Services.

In 2025, Vercel introduced a web application infrastructure model named "Fluid" that enables an instance in a local region to handle multiple requests concurrently, similar to a traditional server, while also maintaining the elasticity of serverless systems.[31]

Controversy and boycott

In September 2025, Vercel's CEO, Guillermo Rauch, posted a selfie on X that he took with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at a private tech meeting in New York, where they discussed artificial intelligence and its application in Israel's economy and defense.[32][33] With the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, the widespread backlash against Vercel led to the boycott of Vercel.[34][35]

Many developers and users deleted their Vercel accounts and switched to alternatives.[34][33] Tech for Palestine endorses the Vercel boycott and supports the migration to Netlify.[36] Amjad Masad offered companies help and discounts when switching to Replit.[37]

References

Bibliography

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 So, Preston (September 9, 2021). Gatsby: The Definitive Guide. O'Reilly Media. p. 367. ISBN 9781492087489. https://books.google.com/books?id=pDhCEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA367. 

Citations

  1. ↑ Garfinkle, Allie (January 25, 2025). "For startups, remote work versus return-to-office is a balance—and an experiment". Fortune. https://fortune.com/2025/01/24/for-startups-remote-work-versus-return-to-office-is-a-balance-and-an-experiment/. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 MacManus, Richard (20 July 2020). "How Vercel Frees Frontend Developers from Backend Burden". The New Stack. https://thenewstack.io/vercels-frontend-and-the-rise-of-the-hybrid-developer/. 
  3. ↑ Lawson, Lorraine (5 February 2025). "Vercel Rolls Out More Cost-Effective Infrastructure Model". The New Stack. https://thenewstack.io/vercel-rolls-out-more-cost-effective-infrastructure-model/. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Tong, Anna (16 May 2024). "Exclusive: Vercel completes $250 mln Series E round at $3.25 bln valuation". Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/technology/vercel-completes-250-mln-series-e-round-325-bln-valuation-2024-05-16/. 
  5. ↑ "Vercel Introduces SDK for Building AI Apps with React and Svelte". CMS Critic. 19 June 2023. https://cmscritic.com/vercel-introduces-sdk-for-building-ai-apps-with-react-and-svelte. 
  6. ↑ "Vercel Closes Series F at $9.3B Valuation to Scale the AI Cloud". Yahoo Finance. 2025-09-30. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vercel-closes-series-f-9-150000846.html. 
  7. ↑ MacManus, Richard (31 August 2023). "Vercel’s Next Big Thing: AI SDK and Accelerator for Devs". The New Stack. https://thenewstack.io/vercels-next-big-thing-ai-sdk-and-accelerator-for-devs/. 
  8. ↑ "Usage statistics of Vercel as web hosting provider". https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ho-vercel. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Pimentel, Benjamin (April 21, 2022). "The 29-year-old founder of Vercel used this pitch deck to raise $21 million from investors like Accel and GitHub's CEO to build faster websites". Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/vercel-zeit-pitch-deck-21-million-accel-github-ceo-2020-4. 
  10. ↑ Carey, Scott (February 21, 2022). "Vercel, Netlify, and the new era of serverless PaaS". InfoWorld. https://www.infoworld.com/article/3650751/vercel-netlify-and-the-new-era-of-serverless-paas.html. 
  11. ↑ Krill, Paul (June 2, 2014). "Socket.IO JavaScript framework ready for real-time apps". InfoWorld. https://www.infoworld.com/article/2607757/socket-io-javascript-framework-ready-for-real-time-apps.html. 
  12. ↑ Anderson, Tim (April 22, 2020). "News sure to ex-Zeit: Next.js company reborn as Vercel". The Register. https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/22/nextjs_vercel_logowatch/. 
  13. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (June 23, 2021). "Vercel raises $102M Series C for its front-end development platform". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/23/vercel-raises-102m-series-c-for-its-next-js-based-front-end-development-platform/. 
  14. ↑ "Webby Winner, v0 from Vercel". https://winners.webbyawards.com/2025/apps-software/software-services-platforms/developer-tools/321965/v0-from-vercel. 
  15. ↑ "Vercel Introduces SDK for Building AI Apps with React and Svelte". CMS Critic. 19 June 2023. https://cmscritic.com/vercel-introduces-sdk-for-building-ai-apps-with-react-and-svelte. 
  16. ↑ MacManus 2023.
  17. ↑ "AI coding startup Vercel raises $300 million, valued at $9.3 billion". Reuters. 2025-09-30. https://www.reuters.com/business/ai-coding-startup-vercel-raises-300-million-valued-93-billion-2025-09-30/. 
  18. ↑ "Vercel Appoints Mitchell Hashimoto, Co-Founder of HashiCorp and Creator of Terraform, to Board of Directors". 2026-03-18. https://www.morningstar.com/news/business-wire/20260318957008/vercel-appoints-mitchell-hashimoto-co-founder-of-hashicorp-and-creator-of-terraform-to-board-of-directors. 
  19. ↑ "Vercel April 2026 security incident" (in en-us). https://vercel.com/kb/bulletin/vercel-april-2026-security-incident. 
  20. ↑ "Vercel Breach Tied to Context AI Hack Exposes Limited Customer Credentials" (in en). The Hacker News. https://thehackernews.com/2026/04/vercel-breach-tied-to-context-ai-hack.html. 
  21. ↑ James, Luke (20 April 2026). "AI cloud company Vercel breached after employee grants AI tool unrestricted access to Google Workspace — hacker seeking $2 million for stolen data" (in en). Tom's Hardware. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/vercel-breached-after-employee-grants-ai-tool-unrestricted-access-to-google-workspace. 
  22. ↑ O'Brien, Terrence (19 April 2026). "Cloud development platform Vercel was hacked". https://www.theverge.com/tech/914723/vercel-hacked. 
  23. ↑ Kovacs, Eduard (20 April 2026). "Next.js Creator Vercel Hacked". SecurityWeek. https://www.securityweek.com/next-js-creator-vercel-hacked/. 
  24. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic (December 9, 2021). "Vercel acquires Turborepo". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/09/vercel-acquires-turborepo/. 
  25. ↑ Dee, Katie (October 25, 2022). "Vercel announces Next.js 13 along with the acquisition of Splitbee". SD Times. https://sdtimes.com/software-development/vercel-announces-next-js-13-along-with-plans-to-acquire-splitbee/. 
  26. ↑ Occhino, Tom (2025-01-22). "Vercel acquires Tremor to invest in open source React components" (in en). https://vercel.com/blog/vercel-acquires-tremor. 
  27. ↑ Chopin, Sébastien (2025-07-08). "NuxtLabs is joining Vercel". https://nuxtlabs.com/. 
  28. ↑ "NuxtLabs joins Vercel". 2025-07-08. https://vercel.com/blog/nuxtlabs-joins-vercel. 
  29. ↑ "Better Auth is joining Vercel" (in en). 2024-09-23. https://better-auth.com/. 
  30. ↑ Tyson, Matthew (April 21, 2022). "Go serverless with Vercel, SvelteKit, and MongoDB". InfoWorld. https://www.infoworld.com/article/3655952/go-serverless-with-vercel-sveltekit-and-mongodb.html. 
  31. ↑ Lawson 2025.
  32. ↑ "Netanyahu holds quiet AI talks with U.S. tech executives in New York" (in en). 2025-09-30. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bkgg5gtngx. 
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Lyon, Jacob (2025-09-30). "Vercel faces user exodus after CEO picture with Benjamin Netanyahu" (in en-US). https://protos.com/vercel-faces-user-exodus-after-ceo-picture-with-benjamin-netanyahu/. 
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 "Developers drop Vercel, call for boycott after CEO posts selfie with Netanyahu" (in en). Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/developers-drop-vercel-call-boycott-after-ceo-posts-selfie-netanyahu. 
  35. ↑ "Vercel faces boycott after founder poses with Netanyahu". https://www.newarab.com/news/vercel-faces-boycott-after-founder-poses-netanyahu. 
  36. ↑ "Vercel's Alignment with Genocide" (in en). https://techforpalestine.org/vercel. 
  37. ↑ "Developers drop Vercel, call for boycott after CEO posts selfie with Netanyahu" (in en). Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/developers-drop-vercel-call-boycott-after-ceo-posts-selfie-netanyahu. 

[ ⚑ ] 37°47′52″N 122°24′19″W / 37.7977°N 122.4053°W / 37.7977; -122.4053



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