Innovations & Inspirations

A lot has changed over the past month.  I bought a gym membership in New York, then had to cancel it.  I made some really great friends in the city, then had to have quick good bye dinners over the span of a week.

I have decided to join New Enterprise Associates, or NEA, in Menlo Park.  It all happened really fast; in fact, it happened over the course of essentially 72 hours and most of it in New York, over Skype, and phone calls. And I’m really excited.

The past two years that I’ve been a part of the Bessemer family have been an absolute blessing and privilege for me.  I started in Summer of 2010 as a Summer Analyst in New York and never really left.  I stayed involved during the 2010-2011 school year while working for BVP’s portfolio company, Skybox, and coming into the BVP Menlo Park office multiple times per week.  I was running around the bay area and on my phone all the time speaking with companies, and the day after my graduation from Stanford, we issued an investment recommendation for Snapdeal.  I spent just as much time outside the country (mainly Asia) as in the USA while at BVP, and ended up being actively involved on a number of deals that went through (Matrimony.com, Skybox, and Black Swan Solar) and even more that didn’t.

The more time I spent at Bessemer, the more in awe I became of the people and the firm’s history.  A hundred years is a LOT of time in the venture business, an industry known for its risky investments and high turnover & churn.  And it has everything to do with the type of people that Bessemer hires.  They are some of the most genuine, down-to-earth, caring people in the industry.  They also happen to be really, really good investors.  I wish I could tell you some of their numbers, but all you need to do is look at some of the acquisitions, IPOs, or massive financings from the last year to get a taste: Yelp (IPO), Pinterest (Series A), Millennial Media (Seeded & Series A before IPO),  LinkedIn (IPO), Traffix (acq. F5 Systems), Vertica (acq. HP), OMGPOP (acq. Zynga), Verastem (IPO), and the list goes on!

Leaving wasn’t easy.  I know everyone at the firm, and I have a close personal relationship with a majority of the investment professionals.  It’s never easy to leave a place you love.

Still, every once in an a while, an opportunity comes along that you feel like you have to take.  Something in your gut tells you that the people are something special.  That was the case with NEA.  I’ll be a part of the US tech team (specifically the consumer team, led by Scott Sandell and Tony Florence) and the India team, while continuing to look at other emerging markets.  NEA is an investor in Groupon, Bloom Energy, Workday, and many others.  And they are a really great, welcoming bunch of people.  I could go on about the NEA people and their investments, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

I’m excited for a wild ride ahead.