New Enterprise Associates (NEA) closed two of its funds with $6.2 billion in investor commitments at the end of 2022, making it the largest pool of capital in the firm’s history to fuel investment in tech and healthcare companies.
The pair of funds mark a first for the $25 billion global venture firm in that one is dedicated to early-stage investing and the other to venture growth-stage opportunities.
“We are deeply grateful to our Limited Partners for the trust they have placed in our team, and excited to have raised the largest pool of capital in NEA’s history at a time of great uncertainty, but also tremendous opportunity,” said Scott Sandell, managing general partner at NEA. “Our own performance over decades strongly affirms the importance of both peaks and troughs in a healthy ecosystem for innovation and company building, and we look forward to supporting founders at every stage with both the capital and the cycle-tested expertise NEA has always brought to bear in tough times.”
The funds are expected to invest across a broad range of technology and healthcare sector, including enterprise and consumer technology, digital health and life sciences. Investing activities will span the entire lifecycle company from incubation and seed-stage investments to fueling the growth of market leaders.
Sandell has led NEA’s investments in a broad range of technology companies for nearly three decades and is entering his third investing cycle with the new funds. The core investing practices are led by Tony Florence, managing general partner focused on technology, and Mohamad Makhzoumi, managing general partner in healthcare.
Florence and Makhzoumi joined the firm in 2008 and 2005, respectively, and were promoted to their current roles in 2021. NEA has invested in popular brands such as Plaid, Snapchat and Salesforce.
Florence said that the firm sees an expanding opportunity set in technology at both the early and growth stages that the NEA team has deep domain expertise in across core sectors of innovation including software, infrastructure, fintech, next-generation web technologies and artificial intelligence.
“Healthcare innovation has never been more important than at this moment in time,” said Makhzoumi. “With the industry on the precipice of dramatic change, we are eager to build on NEA’s enduring legacy of creating and investing in the next generation of tech-enabled healthcare disruptors and transformational life sciences companies.”
