Mega software investor NEA (New Enterprise Associates) is among the largest VCs in the US, with over $25bn in assets under management. It’s also increasingly active in Europe — even as other US VCs like Andreessen Horowitz exit the market.
In the first month of 2025, NEA announced four deals in Europe — only one less than the firm struck in all of 2024, making it among the most active investors so far this year, according to Sifted data. Since 2022, when it hired its first London-based investor, managing director Philip Chopin, the firm has done more than 20 deals in Europe, NEA confirmed to Sifted.
But it’s still early days for NEA’s Europe strategy. “We always speak about doing things in a crawl, walk, run approach — so not trying to leapfrog things and go too fast from the beginning, but first proving that we can have some success and building upon that,” Chopin tells Sifted. “I think we’re still very much at the crawl phase.
“This is very much a 10-20 year decision.”
NEA’s focus on AI
AI has been a big theme for NEA this year (no surprises) — and it’s invested in some of the hottest European AI startups. “I do think there is phenomenal AI talent in Europe,” fellow London-based partner Luke Pappas says.
NEA’s Europe deals so far this year include buzzy AI video-generating startup Synthesia’s $180m fundraise and AI synthetic voice startup ElevenLabs’ $180m round last month. Chopin points out that those recent deals are “slightly later stage and larger investments… We think it’s still early days in Europe — and 10 years, 20 years from now, there will be more and more opportunities.” NEA has a software focus but is more of a generalist investor, writing cheques from early-stage through IPO.
Despite the strong start to the year, NEA plans to be “steady” in its Europe investment strategy — but it could strike more deals if they pop up. Pappas says he’s looking into how code-writing AI models will impact software moving forward, and is eyeing startups tackling AI energy consumption in Europe: “I think there’s an energy challenge for the AI world that we’re going to be moving into, and I am optimistic that there will be solutions that come out of Europe,” he says, pointing to Europe’s historical strength with climate and clean energy tech. “If we find a great company in 2025, yeah, we can go for it.”
Here are some of NEA’s most notable deals in Europe since the firm opened its London outpost in 2022.
Synthesia
The London-based text-to-video AI startup Synthesia raised $180m in a January Series D round led by NEA — which valued the startup at over $2bn. Other investors in the round included GV, MMC Ventures, World Innovation Lab and Atlassian Ventures.
Founded in 2017, Synthesia uses generative AI to make videos, and says it has 60k customers including Amazon and Johnson & Johnson.
It’s also among the AI startups in Europe experimenting with the new Chinese AI model DeepSeek, which has taken the tech world by storm with its apparently lower-cost and high-performance model. “Our research teams are experimenting with DeepSeek, and if it meets our high standards for performance, security, and ease of integration, we will then make a decision whether to deploy it in our products,” the startup recently told Sifted.
ElevenLabs
New York- and London-based ElevenLabs was founded in 2022 by Palantir and Google alumni and converts text to voice using AI. The startup announced a $180m Series C round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Growth last month, with other investors like NEA and World Innovation Lab chipping in. That fundraise came hot on the heels of an $80m round one year prior, which minted ElevenLabs’ unicorn status.
Like Synthesia, ElevenLabs says it’s been working with DeepSeek — and was among the first Europe startups to say it was incorporating the R1 model. Its synthetic voice tech implements things like emotion and intonation, and the startup says it’s worked with the likes of media publication Time and Nvidia.
Sana AI
Thanks to an October $55m funding round led by NEA, Swedish AI assistant startup Sana AI is now about halfway to a unicorn valuation. Sana is building a “knowledge assistant” using AI to help employees search company data.
Founded in 2016, Sana is also backed by the likes of Menlo Ventures and Workday Ventures. The startup says it has about 300 enterprise customers (as of October), including pharmaceutical titan Merck and mobility startup Voi.
Djust
French ecommerce startup DJUST raised €12m in June 2023 from NEA and Elaia Partners. The startup focuses on B2B commerce transactions, enabling companies to do things like manage their replenishment to reduce stock shortages and manage product recommendations.
Fire1
Irish connected medical device company FIRE1 raised $120m in January from investors including NEA, Novo Holdings, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and Polaris Partners. Founded in 2013, the company makes devices for people living with heart failure.
Orbis Medicines
The Copenhagen-based drug discovery startup raised a €90m Series A round led by NEA in January, with other backers including Eli Lilly, the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark and founding investors Novo Holdings and Forbion. Orbis Medicines focuses on developing oral alternatives of blockbuster drugs.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/nea-portfolio-europe-ai/
