New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is a global venture capital firm that provides investment capital to technology and healthcare businesses, from seed stage through IPO. Its fund family includes NEA 19, focused primarily on seed and early-stage investments, and NEA 19 Venture Growth Equity, targeting later-stage and growth businesses. These funds serve entrepreneurs at different stages of company development and receive backing from institutional limited partners, including Japan Investment Corporation.

Charles Richard “Dick” Kramlich, Chuck Newhall and Frank Bonsal founded NEA in 1977, intending to build an investment partnership that would endure across successive funds and leadership generations. Today, Tony Florence and Mohamad Makhzoumi serve as co-CEOs. That history spans both technology and healthcare investing rather than a single generation of AI businesses.

NEA’s AI investment framework emphasizes vertical AI: industry-specific agents that process unstructured information, perform work and integrate with existing business software. It sees newly captured workflow data as a potential advantage for these businesses, an investment thesis rather than technology developed by NEA itself. Across its broader investment business, the firm reported more than $35 billion in assets under management at year-end 2025.