New Enterprise Associates has closed a deal to sell $1.3 billion of interests in about 20 portfolio companies to a new fund managed by a new venture capital firm headed by two former NEA executives, multiple sources with knowledge of the transaction have said.
The transaction has been funded by secondary investors at a price of about 90% of net asset value. NEA is expected to retain an investment in the new vehicle. Ravi Viswanathan, one of the new firm's leaders and a former NEA general partner, last week filed a regulatory document for a fund to raise $1.35 billion.
The new fund includes a mix of current NEA limited partners as well as other investors. The secondary deal will allow NEA to make a cash distribution to limited partners in its older funds, sources said.
NEA declined comment.
“We believe the NEA… portfolio sale will become a blueprint for other GPs seeking to liquidate multiple older funds simultaneously and provide large cash distributions to LPs,” Laurence G. Allen, managing member and CEO of NYPPEX said in an email. NYPPEX was not involved with the NEA deal.
