Menlo Park, CA and New York, NY — May 16, 2023 — New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) today announced several key investing team promotions. Aaron Jacobson and Vanessa Larco, both technology investors, have been elevated to senior investing team roles with appointments to the firm’s Venture Capital Investment Committee. NEA also promoted three individuals to Partner: Danielle Lay and Luke Pappas on the technology investing team, and healthcare investor Lily Huang.
“We are delighted to recognize the many contributions both Aaron and Vanessa have made to our investing practices, as well as the significant impact each has had on our organization,” said Scott Sandell, CEO, NEA. “Both have played important roles in helping to build some of the most successful and transformational companies in our portfolio, forging deep, trusting relationships with the entrepreneurs they support along the way. Aaron and Vanessa embody our shared values of trust, teamwork, and excellence across all facets of their work, from helping to shape our sector strategies to mentoring the next generation of talent, and we look forward to their continued success in these new roles.”
Aaron Jacobson, who joined NEA in 2011, is an enterprise technology investor focused on AI/ML, developer tools, cloud infrastructure, robotics, and cybersecurity. He is a director of flox, Crowdbotics, Embrace, Pulumi, DeltaStream, Rapid Robotics, Outrider, Tigera, and ForAllSecure and works closely with Databricks, Antimatter, and others. Jacobson also played a key role in the firm’s historic investments in Box, NGINX, StreamSets, and Illusive Networks.
Vanessa Larco joined NEA in 2016 and invests in enterprise software and consumer technology companies. She is a director of Assembled, Cleo, Evernow, Evident ID, Kindred, Mejuri, and Rocket.Chat. Additionally, Larco led NEA’s investment in Greenlight and was a board observer at Robinhood. She serves on the boards of LatinxVC and Venture Atlanta.
Jacobson’s and Larco’s new roles reflect several recent updates to NEA’s organizational structure—notably, the firm retired the title of “General Partner” and now designates its senior investment personnel by appointment to the Venture Capital Investment Committee or Venture Growth Equity Investment Committee. The promotions of Danielle Lay, Luke Pappas and Lily Huang to Partner continue NEA’s long-standing emphasis on promoting from within, recognizing the outstanding contributions each has made as a core member of the firm’s investing team.
“There’s a long-running quip at NEA that promotions typically come after someone has already been doing the job for quite some time, and it’s hard to imagine two more apt examples than Danielle and Luke,” said Tony Florence, Co-President, NEA, who has worked closely with both investors since they joined the firm in 2017. “They are culture carriers who reflect the very best of NEA in all they do, and each has shown tremendous leadership, acumen, and commitment in their work—from Luke’s efforts to expand our operations in Europe to Danielle’s role in developing NEA’s sector theses in emerging areas of focus. We’re very excited to celebrate their many contributions with these promotions."
NEA Co-President Mohamad Makhzoumi, who has mentored Huang since she joined the firm in 2017, noted that “Lily has continually distinguished herself as an investor, company builder and consummate teammate. She has been involved in company formation, provided critical support to growing businesses, and played an important role in numerous transactions across our healthcare portfolio. Resolve, resourcefulness, and an unflappable demeanor are just a few hallmark traits of this talented investor, and I’m thrilled to recognize her contributions with this promotion to Partner.”
Lily Huang focuses primarily on digital health investments. She is a director of Curana Health, Elion, and Vori Health and serves as a board observer of Belong Health, Everside Health, Strive Health, and triValence.
Danielle Lay invests in consumer technology with particular focus on social-viral and e-commerce infrastructure. She is a director of Goody and serves as a board observer of Block Renovation, Burrow, Fizz, Formlabs, Pair, Prime Financial Technologies, and THE WELL.
Luke Pappas invests in consumer and enterprise companies, serving as a board observer or working closely with Aquabyte, Bliq, goop, Konux, Modyfi, With, and PlayVS. He has also been involved in several of the firm’s key strategic initiatives, including its secondary sale in 2018; the formation of Connect Ventures, a joint venture with CAA; and most recently NEA’s expanding presence in Europe.
In addition to these promotions at the Investment Committee and Partner level, NEA also announced promotions at the Principal and Senior Associate level. On the technology team, Alex Sharata was named Principal and Arjun Jain, Mustafa Neemuchwala, and Hunter Worland were promoted to Senior Associate. Healthcare investing team promotions include James Buxton and Lulu Xu to Principal and Michael Li to Senior Associate.
About NEA
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. Founded in 1977, NEA has over $25 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2023 and invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of investing includes more than 270 portfolio company IPOs and more than 450 mergers and acquisitions. For more information, please visit www.nea.com.
