[2][3][4][5][6] NEA was founded in 1977 by C. Richard (Dick) Kramlich, Chuck Newhall and Frank Bonsal.

[7] Kramlich had worked with noted venture capitalist Arthur Rock beginning in 1969 and Frank Bosnal had been an investment banker at Alex.

The firm continued to grow steadily throughout the 1980s and early 1990s raising $900 million from 1987 through 1996 across NEA's next four funds.

[9][10] In 2010, NEA launched its thirteenth investment fund with $2.5 billion of investor capital, the largest since the Financial crisis of 2007–08.

Some of the firm's investments include: Aerohive Networks, Alimera Sciences, Amicus Therapeutics, Antenna Software, Appian, AppSheet, Arris International, Automation Anywhere, Bloom Energy, Box, Inc., Bright Health, Built Robotics, ByteDance, Champions Oncology, Clarifai, Cleo, Clio, Cloudflare, Clovis Oncology, Cohere, Conviva, CrowdMed, Coursera, Dandelion Energy, Databricks, Drop, Eargo, Edmodo, Enigma, FiscalNote, Formlabs, FTX, Gen.G, Genies, Inc., Goji Electronics, GoodLeap, Goop, HackerOne, Houzz, IFTTT, Illumitex, Illusive Networks, Instabase, Konux, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Luminary, Luxtera, MasterClass, Moda Operandi, MongoDB, Pager, Patreon, Philo, Plaid, Raise.com, Regulus Therapeutics, Robinhood Markets, Rock Health, Smartcar, Splashtop, Tamara Mellon, The Yes, ThirdLove, Tintri, Uniphore, Upstart, Upwork, Virtru, Wheels Up, Zoomdata.