An NEA Pitch Deck Circa 2019
Background: pitch deck I recently came across from NEA, and thought I would share. The deck seems to be focused more on “Venture Capital” vs. NEA. Still thought it would be fun to look at.
Slides + Commentary:
Slide going over track record of the fund. Note for funds that have been in existence for decades there is a tendency to only include the last ten funds in calculating IRR (and other metrics).
Discussing NEA’s unique internal advantages. Slide feels relatively generic, and can be easily repurposed by other funds.
Again more information that is focused on Venture Capital more than NEA itself. What would strengthen this slide is showing the value of Technology and Healthcare investments over time (bonus points if they contrasted it with other industries).
Slide that outlines their portfolio companies and verticals they have invested into. Total industry slide could be improved if they showed how much of the market share they had in each vertical (if possible).
NEA’s slide feels non-specialized. For comparison, see DCVC Bio II’s opportunity slide below, Note how DCVC Bio II uses specialist vocabulary relevant to their industry, whereas NEA sticks to more layman terms.
Another generic slide going over metrics that impact the Venture Capital industry. At this point it feels like NEA is looking to teach the audience about Venture Capital more than about “why NEA?”.
Excellent slide, could have been introduced earlier in the deck to help discuss specifically how NEA’s portfolio is allocated. Allows the presenters to change their story to “this is VC today. These are the opportunities. This is how our portfolio is structured to capitalize on these opportunities.”
This is a weird slide, arrows are going downwards implying that ownership and $ invested can be negative. I assume that the % ownership in the top two quadrants will be <20%, meaning that they like to own a lot early, then buy to maintain their position. The bottom left quadrant highlights how they avoid investing a lot of money into small ownership (what seems ironic is that Tiger Global seems to take the contrary strategy- curious if Tiger and NEA are co-investors in any deals [not startups]).
Nice slide demonstrating some of their successes in the market. The Tesaro deal is interesting due to NEA taking distributions at multiple points after IPO. For background on May 2012, NEA owned 50.3% of Tesaro, after IPO, in June 2012, the ownership was down to 43.1% from there, “NEA’s stake declined to 35.3% in 2013, 27.4% in 2014, 24.6% in 2015, 23% in 2016, and 19% in 2017 after a series of secondary offerings and private placements. NEA maintained its 19% stake until the Acquisition”. It would be interesting to do a deep dive into this deal later on. See below for stock prices at these times. Below you can see share price at different point in time.
Last slide, much like earlier slides feels very generic. There is no VC that does not care about: board loads of their partners, distributions, or improving commitments into high-performing startups.
Metrics:
As of March 2020, NEA had below average IRR, but above average DPI and TVPI.
Conclusion:
For the most part, slides did not feel like they could be unique to NEA. Perhaps this is something “prestigious funds” are allowed to do. The Tesaro deal was interesting to read about, and probably worth exploring into more detail if possible.
