Ed Anderson

Ed Anderson co-founded North Bridge Venture Partners in 1994 and serves as its Founder and Managing General Partner. The firm, based in the Boston suburbs (most recently at 150 A Street, Suite 102, Needham, MA), provides financing across the full lifecycle — from seed stage through growth — and over the years built a reputation as a top-tier venture firm largely on the strength of Anderson's telecom and networking deals. Before founding North Bridge, Anderson spent roughly ten years as a General Partner with ABS Ventures, the venture-capital affiliate of investment bank Alex. Brown & Sons. Earlier in his career he worked as a strategic-planning consultant at The Michael Allen Company and held sales, marketing, and general-management roles, both domestically and overseas, at Phelps Dodge Industries.

Across more than three decades, Anderson has almost always entered a company at the seed or first round and taken a board seat, backing many of the communications industry's most successful startups. He was a seed/first-round investor and director in companies such as Cascade Communications, Wellfleet Communications, ArrowPoint Communications, Sonus Networks, Sycamore Networks, Starent Networks, Redstone Communications, Spring Tide Networks, NetCore Systems, Broadband Access Systems, New Oak Communications, Camiant Networks, and Winphoria Networks — a high proportion of which reached IPO or were acquired by major players (Tellabs, Lucent, Bay Networks, Siemens, Motorola, ADC, Tekelec, and others).

In March 2014, Fortune reported that Anderson, along with co-founder Rich D'Amore and partner Jeff McCarthy, stepped back from serving as general partners on North Bridge's next early-stage fund, transitioning to advisory roles for that fund while continuing on the firm's growth equity fund (which had closed at $580 million in fall 2013). The growth equity practice was subsequently spun out and rebranded as Guidepost Growth Equity, where Anderson is listed as a member of the advisory board.

Anderson holds degrees from the University of Denver (M.F.A., 1971) and Columbia University's Graduate School of Business Administration (1977). In December 2014, TiE-Boston honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to New England's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

• Backs "exceptional people whose ideas have the potential to disrupt the way we live and work," funding from seed through growth (firm's own stated positioning).
• Enters early — almost always as the first-round/seed investor — and takes an active director role, then supports companies through to scale.
• Deep, repeated conviction in communications, networking, and infrastructure technology, expanding into software, materials, healthcare, and digital media.
• Track record of building category leaders: per TiE-Boston, North Bridge invested in 27 companies founded by TiE entrepreneurs, committing roughly $368 million, with a ~72% success rate (about 3× the industry norm); the firm's portfolio reportedly produced 10 industry leaders, 6 billion-dollar "unicorns," and over $50 billion in total value created.
• On his approach: "For the past 30 years… I've had the good fortune to be involved as a seed or first round investor and director in some of the communications industry's most successful start-ups." On the TiE recognition he said, "I feel incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed a spectacular partnership over the past 30 years with members of the TiE organization."