New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

New Enterprise Associates, known universally as NEA, is one of the largest and longest-tenured venture firms in the world, with offices across the US and Asia and roughly $25 billion in assets under management across its history. Founded in 1977, NEA has institutionalized a balanced practice across technology and healthcare, and the healthcare arm has historically been one of the most consistently active in the category. The firm is unusual at its scale for being genuinely stage-agnostic: NEA can write the first $250,000 check at seed, lead a $50 million Series B, or pour $200 million into a late-stage growth round, all from the same partnership. This structural breadth is a real advantage for healthcare founders who want a long-duration partner that can support a company through a decade-plus journey.

The healthcare practice is now led by Mohamad Makhzoumi, who joined NEA in 2000 and has risen through the firm to serve as Co-CEO. Makhzoumi previously served as Managing General Partner for Healthcare and built his reputation around a thesis focused on the unglamorous but enormous opportunities in healthcare administrative waste, infrastructure, and back-office operations rather than flashy consumer apps. His current and recent board seats have included Aetion, AllyAlign Health, Bright Health, Collective Health, Comprehensive Pharmacy Services, Everside Health, Nuvolo, Radiology Partners, Strive Health, and Vori Health. The broader healthcare team includes partners across digital health, biopharma, and devices, and several of NEA’s flagship healthcare companies, including Radiology Partners, Strive Health, and Curana Health, were originally incubated inside NEA’s Silicon Valley venture studio rather than sourced as external deals.

Check sizes are wide. At seed and Series A, NEA can write $5 million to $20 million; at Series B and C, $25 million to $75 million; and at later growth stages, $100 million plus. The firm typically leads at Series A and B, frequently co-leads at seed alongside specialist firms, and participates with substantial check sizes at later stages. NEA almost always takes a board seat at the rounds it leads and reserves heavily for follow-on. Geographic scope is global with strong US, China, and India practices, although the China healthcare practice has scaled back relative to its 2010s peak.

Founders who should approach NEA are operators building large, durable healthcare businesses across services, software, and biopharma. Makhzoumi has historically been most active in healthcare services and infrastructure, including specialty care platforms, value-based care providers, healthcare data and analytics, and back-office software. The firm is less active in consumer wellness brands and is selective about pure DTC plays. Biopharma founders should engage NEA’s life sciences partners, who target therapeutics platforms and asset-driven companies at multiple stages. NEA is well suited for founders who envision raising a billion dollars over a decade and want a single anchor investor who can commit across the journey.

Entry path runs through warm introductions from portfolio CEOs and operators in NEA’s broader network, which is enormous given the firm’s age. Makhzoumi and the senior healthcare partners are at JPMorgan Healthcare, HLTH, and ViVE, and the firm runs an active operating partner program that creates additional entry points. Cold inbound through the NEA website is triaged. Diligence runs at the pace of competitive deals, three to five weeks for hot rounds, longer for novel platforms, and is rigorous and partner-led.

In a pitch, lead with the size and durability of the opportunity, the founder market fit, and the unit economics. NEA partners are pattern-matchers who think in terms of category leadership and exit potential, and they want to see why your company can be the leader in a multi-billion-dollar category. They will also want to see a clear plan from current scale to category leadership, including the operational, capital, and talent road map. Macro-trend slides without commercial proof rarely convert. The firm’s added value is best realized when founders use NEA’s extensive operator network for senior hires, public-market preparation, M&A optionality, and strategic introductions. NEA is one of the few firms that can credibly back a healthcare company from formation to IPO with a single partner relationship, and founders building toward that scale will find NEA one of the more strategically useful tier-one partners in the category.