New Enterprise Associates, Inc. announced several key promotions on its investing team: Partners Andrew Schoen and Blake Wu have been elevated to the firm’s Venture Capital Investment Committee, and Alex Sharata has been promoted to Partner.
“We are thrilled to acknowledge the significant contributions Andrew and Blake have made to our investing practices, as well as the growing leadership role each plays within our organization, with these promotions,” said Tony Florence, Co-CEO, NEA. “Both are proven investors and company builders within their respective areas of focus, and they bring a tremendous depth of domain expertise to the firm as well as founders across the portfolio. We’re also really excited to promote Alex to Partner, recognizing his investing acumen as well as the growing role he plays in executing NEA’s growth-stage strategy.”
Andrew Schoen joined NEA in 2014 and invests in founders innovating in AI/ML, fintech, frontier tech, infrastructure software, technically differentiated SaaS, and security. He is currently a board director or observer of Aigen, Clarifai, Dandelion, Merge, Metronome, Super, ThreatQuotient, and Wispr. Schoen’s historic investments include publicly traded or acquired companies such as Berkshire Grey, CCP Games, Duolingo, Expanse, FiscalNote, IonQ, and Pentaho. He was previously a member of Blackstone’s M&A group and founder of Flicstart.
Blake Wu, who joined the firm in 2014, invests in digital health and biopharmaceutical companies. He is a board director or observer of NeueHealth, SetPoint Medical, Slope, and Spiras Health and also works closely with Aetion, Collective Health, Radiology Partners, and X4, among others. Wu’s historic investments include Geron, Nuvolo, and SCI Solutions. Prior to joining NEA, he was a healthcare investor at Ares Management. Earlier in his career, Wu held roles in investment banking at Moelis & Company and equity research at Barclays Capital.
Alex Sharata joined NEA in 2020 and is focused on growth-stage investments across enterprise, fintech, and consumer. He is a board observer of Brale, DeltaStream, Grid, Snowplow, and Weaviate and also works closely with Courtyard, Datafold, Merge, MoonPay, QuoteWell, and VAST Data, among others. Sharata was previously an investor at Vista Equity Partners focused on mature enterprise software companies. Prior to becoming an investor, he was a co-founder of Fractal, a mobile app security company that was acquired in 2017.
“NEA’s emphasis on mentorship and promoting investors from within our ranks spans the nearly 50-year history of our firm, and the benefits of our enduring focus are really exemplified with these promotions,” said Mohamad Makhzoumi, Co-CEO, NEA. “The investors appointed to our Venture Capital Investment Committee have both been with NEA for more than a decade. Andrew, Blake and Alex all joined as Associates and have steadily built their expertise, portfolios and networks while working alongside senior partners on some of the firm’s most notable and successful historic investments. This is echoed in other recent promotions across our investing team this spring, including those to Partner or Principal roles, as well as our newly elevated Senior Associates.”
In addition to the promotions of Schoen, Wu and Sharata, NEA made the following appointments: Michael Li to Principal on the healthcare team; Arjun Jain to Principal on the technology team; and Mia Mansour, Mason Murray, and Kemi Odusan to Senior Associate roles on the technology team.
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