Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
The bicoastal, multi-stage "aircraft carrier" of venture capital: founded in 1977–78 by an East Coast banker, a West Coast venture investor and a T. Rowe Price fund manager, NEA built one of the largest and most consistent firms in the industry by investing across technology and healthcare, from seed to pre-IPO, out of very large flagship funds.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1977 (first fund closed 1978); offices in Baltimore and San Francisco from the start
- Founders
- C. Richard "Dick" Kramlich, Charles "Chuck" Newhall III, Frank Bonsal Jr.
- Headquarters
- Menlo Park, CA, and Timonium, MD (Baltimore area); offices in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C. and Boston (reported); historically affiliates in India and China
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership; series of numbered flagship funds (NEA 1 to NEA 19) plus companion venture growth equity (VGE) vehicles
- Leadership (2026)
- Co-CEOs Tony Florence (technology) and Mohamad Makhzoumi (healthcare), since April 2024; Scott Sandell Executive Chairman and Chief Investment Officer
- AUM / capital raised
- More than $25bn of committed capital (firm figure, end-2023); 20+ funds over five decades
- Stage focus
- Seed through growth; technology (enterprise software, infrastructure, fintech, consumer) and healthcare (biopharma, medtech, tech-enabled services)
- Signature investments
- 3Com, Data Domain, Groupon, TESARO, Cloudflare, Coursera, Databricks, Robinhood, Perplexity; misses and failures: Desktop Metal (SPAC then bankruptcy), Groupon's post-IPO collapse, many 2000-era telecom write-offs
10 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1981
3Com
Early Venture Round
2002
Data Domain
Series A
2008
Groupon
Early Institutional Round
2010
TESARO
Series A
2011
Cloudflare
Series B
2012
Coursera
Series A
2014
Databricks
Series B
2015
Desktop Metal
Early Rounds
2015
Robinhood
Series B
2023
Perplexity
Series A