A Look At New Enterprise Associates As It Picks Up The Pace In 2022 

One of the most seasoned venture capital firms, Menlo Park, California-based New Enterprise Associates is in the process of closing on its latest fund 18, Axios reported. With $5.1 billion raised to date, this is the largest fund raised by the firm, showing strong interest from limited partners in this asset class, despite the downturn.

The new fund also signals a clearer fund structure.

The firm is raising two funds: a core fund and a growth fund. This is not the first time it is raising a growth vehicle. In 2015 it raised a $350 million opportunity fund. But this is a much larger vehicle of $2.3 billion raised so far, focused on growth-stage investing.

Distinguishing  between an earlier-stage funding practice and opportunities to lead fundings at the growth stage has become standard practice as venture firms raise ever-larger core funds and then opportunity funds to continue investing.

Growth-stage investing has declined in 2022 as private equity firms have pulled back based on repricing public technology stocks. This provides opportunities for venture investors to pick up the slack in a less competitive late-stage funding market.

So far in 2022, the firm has invested at an increased pace for the first eight months of the year compared to 2021, and has led more fundings targeted at seed and Series A.

Companies led at seed and Series A include:

• San Francisco-based Arkestro, a smart procurement platform, raised a $26 million Series A investment led by NEA, Construct, Koch Disruptive Technologies and Four More Capital.
• San Francisco-based Evernow focuses on women’s menopause treatment. It raised an NEA-led  $28.5 million Series A.
• Amsterdam-based SeMI Technologies develops AI for software applications. It raised a $16.5 million Series A led by NEA and Cortical Ventures.
• Oakland, California-based data security company Antimatter raised a $12 million Series A led by NEA.
• San Francisco-based Glacier builds AI powered robots for recycling. It raised a $4.5 million seed round, which was led by NEA.

NEA backgrounder

NEA has been investing for more than 45 years. It raised its first fund of $16 million in 1978. Its first billion-dollar single fund was fund 10 in 2000, with $2.3 billion raised before the dotcom bubble burst. Since then, the firm has raised eight funds, totaling around $24 billion.

The firm is bi-coastal with its largest investment hubs in the Bay Area and New York. It also invests in Asia and increasingly in Europe.

Scott Sandell, who joined the firm in 1996, became the sole managing partner in 2017. Sandell has led investments in Cloudflare, Robinhood and Coursera to name a few. The team has a core technology and a health care practice focus with a 2021 announcement of Tony Florence leading technology and Mohamad Makhzoumi leading health care.

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Seed and early-stage investments led by NEA in 2022

Methodology

The total dollar amount of rounds the firm participated in reflects the total investment in those rounds, not the particular firm’s stake in those rounds—which is normally not released. All numbers relating to deals and deal size are from Crunchbase data.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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