Scott Sandell

Managing General Partner, NEA

Scott Sandell is the Managing General Partner of NEA. Since joining the firm in 1996, Scott has led investments in many industry-transforming technology companies including Data Domain, Salesforce.com, Tableau Software, WebEx and Workday, and is among the most frequently named venture capitalists to the Forbes Midas List. Scott is currently the lead independent director of Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) and a director of Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE). Scott also serves on the boards of a number of private companies including Banjo, Branch, Coursera, Divvy, Expanse, Hello Alfred, One Concern, Robinhood and Transfix. He also remains actively involved with the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), where he served as Chairman of the Board from 2014-2015.

Outside of NEA, Scott serves on the Board of Advisors of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. A frequent guest lecturer at both Stanford and U.C. Berkeley, Scott also recently co-created and is now co-teaching a course at Stanford on principled entrepreneurship. Before joining NEA, Scott was a product manager at Microsoft. Prior to that, Scott co-founded and ran the European subsidiary of C-ATS Software. He began his career at the Boston Consulting Group. Scott holds an MBA from Stanford and an AB in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College.

Why is advancing the next era of venture capital important?

Venture capital is an American national treasure. It has fueled the advancement of innovation, economies, and people. It has created value, jobs, wealth, and life-changing products and services. Though venture capital as an industry may be young and as an asset class may be small, high-growth startups and their long-term investors have truly changed the world.

To continue the success of the industry’s past 50 years to the next 50 years and beyond, we must expand opportunities for people of all backgrounds to access the venture ecosystem and thrive. We must educate future leaders on best practices and help them learn from the industry’s rich history. We must help firms build strong, healthy cultures and values. We must keep the public and ecosystem informed through qualitative and quantitative insights.

By investing in tomorrow’s leaders today, we shape the next era of venture capital.

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10,000+

high-growth startups—across all 50 states and DC—raised venture funding in 2019 to build and grow their businesses.

42%

of all U.S. IPOs from 1974 to 2015 were venture-backed companies, representing 63% of the market capitalization and 85% of R&D.

2.9 million

is the average net jobs created annually between 1980 and 2010 by high-growth startups, which account for ~50% of gross jobs created in the U.S.

1,300+

U.S. venture firms are active today, managing an aggregate of $444 billion in assets.