James Kaplan
Venture Investor at NEA
San Francisco Bay Area
Invests in
Sectors:
Locations:
Min Investment:
$2,000,000.00Max Investment:
$50,000,000.00Target Investment:
$25,000,000.00
Education
Lists including James
Work Experience
Venture Investor
2023
Investor or supported companies like: -Perplexity (follow-ons): the leading model agnostic answer engine -ElevenLabs (Series C): the leading consumer and developer AI audio platform -Backflip (led Series A): generative 3D platform for industrial design & engineering -Genmo (led Series A): the leading open source video generation foundation model -Ceramic (led Seed): AI model training infrastructure -Samaya (led Series A): AI agents for financial services -August (led Seed): flexible AI platform for law firms, especially those in the mid-market -Aurelian (led Series A): AI platform for 911 centers, starting by automating non-emergency calls with voice agents For over 45+ years, NEA has partnered with generational software companies like Databricks, Plaid, Tableau, MongoDB, and Cloudflare and consumer companies like Robinhood, Opendoor, Duolingo, Jet.com, Scopely, Glu Mobile, GoodLeap, MasterClass and Houzz. The firm has backed over 1,000 companies and had 300+ IPOs
2023 - 2023
Venture Partner
2023 - 2023
Multi-stage venture fund started by the founding engineer at Cruise
2023 - 2023
Finance & Monetization Consultant
2023 - 2023
Startup game studio (raised $36M) founded by the StarCraft II team. Building a new RTS game
2023 - 2023
Strategic Finance - GTM
2023 - 2023
The all-in-one platform for beauty professionals Along with traditional FP&A functions, worked with GTM (marketing and partnerships) and CX teams to set processes for understanding headcount planning and unit economics
2022 - 2023
Investment Banking Analyst – Technology
2022 - 2023
Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) Group
2020 - 2022
Managing Partner & Founder
2020 - 2022
Founded a ~$1M AUM venture fund writing $25k pre-seed/seed checks into Southern California student and recent alum startups. Sourced 8 investments including -OneText (onetext.com) Seed: e-commerce text-to-buy. Co-invested with Coatue and Citi Ventures -Conversion (conversion.ai) Seed: AI agents for marketing -222 (222.place) Pre-Seed: social platform recreating serendipity. Co-invested with General Catalyst and NEA Scout Fund
2020 - 2022
Managing Partner
2020 - 2022
Wrote $100k-$150k pre-seed/seed checks into student startups. Sourced 5 investments including: -Conversion (conversion.ai) Pre-Seed -Fanfix (acq. by SuperOrdinary) Pre-Seed
2018 - 2022
College Internships
2018 - 2022
Credit Suisse (Summer Analyst): Technology investment banking Troy Capital Partners (Venture Investor): LA-based multi-stage venture fund founded by Josh Berman, co-founder of Myspace Harbor Ridge Capital (Summer Analyst): B2B software focused investment bank Kestrel Investment Management Corp (Equity Investment Research): Value-driven small-cap public equity investment management firm
2018 - 2021
Founding Team – Head of Growth & BD
2018 - 2021
Built and grew a mental health peer support community for Gen Z Acquired by Blue Fever in 2021