Aaron Jacobson

Aaron Jacobson is a Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the world's largest and most active venture capital firms. He joined NEA in 2011 and has spent over a decade building a portfolio concentrated at the intersection of enterprise infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and frontier technology. In May 2023, he was appointed to NEA's Venture Capital Investment Committee, reflecting his elevated role in shaping the firm's investment strategy. He was previously promoted from Principal to Partner in an earlier career milestone at the firm.

Before joining NEA, Jacobson spent two years as an M&A advisory analyst at Qatalyst Partners in San Francisco, where he worked on high-profile transactions including the sale of PopCap Games to Electronic Arts, the sale of Riot Games to Tencent, the strategic investment in GoDaddy by KKR/Silver Lake/TCV, and the sale of Palm to HP. This dealmaking experience gave him deep exposure to technology market dynamics and company valuations at scale.

Jacobson graduated summa cum laude from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, earning dual bachelor of science degrees in Economics (Wharton) and Electrical Engineering (Penn Engineering), with a minor in Mathematics. He was named to Forbes Magazine's "30 Under 30" in Venture Capital in 2016 and the Silicon Valley Business Journal's "40 Under 40" the same year.

Jacobson partners with founders building the next generation of SaaS applications, big data platforms, and cloud infrastructure. His thesis centers on backing companies that provide foundational layers of the modern technology stack -- particularly those enabling enterprises to build, scale, and secure software at unprecedented speed. He has a strong conviction in AI/ML infrastructure, believing that companies need robust tooling and compute platforms to harness generative AI effectively. In robotics, he sees a "golden age of industrial automation" driven by advances in perception, manipulation, and autonomy. He emphasizes doing "the right thing, even when it's the hard thing," prioritizing long-term value creation for all stakeholders over short-term gains.

| Company | Category | Status | |---------|----------|--------| | Databricks | Data/AI Platform | Private (Board Observer) | | Together AI | AI Infrastructure | Private | | Factory | AI-Native Development | Private | | Pulumi | Cloud Infrastructure as Code | Private (Board Director) | | Embrace | Mobile Observability | Private (Board Director) | | Tigera | Cloud-Native Security | Private (Board Director) | | Horizon3.ai | Cybersecurity | Private | | Veza | Identity Security | Private (Board Director) | | Outrider | Autonomous Yard Trucks | Private | | Second Front Systems | Defense Software | Private (Board Director) | | Martian | AI Model Routing | Private | | Firestorm | Cybersecurity | Private (Board Director) | | Box | Cloud Storage | Public (NYSE: BOX) | | Bloom Energy | Clean Energy | Public (NYSE: BE) | | Coursera | Online Education | Public (NYSE: COUR) | | NGINX | Web Server / Reverse Proxy | Acquired by F5 Networks | | StreamSets | Data Integration | Acquired by Software AG | | illusive networks | Cybersecurity / Deception | Acquired by Proofpoint | | Mayhem | Software Security Testing | Acquired by Bugcrowd | | Juvo | Financial Identity | Private (Board Director) | | DeltaStream | Real-Time Data | Private | | Datafold | Data Quality | Private | | flox | Developer Environments | Private |