James Kaplan
Investor at New Enterprise Associates
James Kaplan
Investor at New Enterprise Associates
San Francisco Bay Area
Overview
Work Experience
Venture Investor
2023 - Current
For over 40 years, NEA has partnered with generational software companies like Databricks, Plaid, Tableau, MongoDB, and Cloudflare and consumer companies like Robinhood, Duolingo, Jet.com, Scopely, Glu Mobile, GoodLeap, and Houzz. The firm has backed over 1,000 companies and had 250+ IPOs
Venture Partner
2023 - 2023
Multi-stage venture fund started by the founding engineer at Cruise
Finance & Monetization Consultant
2023 - 2023
The future of RTS
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
Investment Banking Analyst – Technology
2022 - 2023
Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) Group
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. Investments include: -OneText (onetext.com) Seed: e-commerce text-to-buy -Style (usestyle.ai) Seed: generative AI marketing suite for SMBs -222 (222.place) Pre-Seed: social platform recreating serendipity -FlexWash (flexwashtech.com) Pre-Seed: vertical SaaS for car washes -Middlemen (middlemen.io) Pre-Seed: infrastructure allowing all resellers to have StockX-like verification -Kona (heykona.com) Seed: AI copilot for remote managers -Stealth consumer Pre-Seed -Stealth marketplace Pre-Seed Founders reach out to ops@crescentfund.vc
Managing Partner
2020 - 2022
Wrote $100k-$150k pre-seed/seed checks into student startups. Investments include: -Relentlo (relentlo.com) Seed -Playbook (playbookxr.com) Pre-Seed -Fanfix (acq. by SuperOrdinary) Pre-Seed -SoundMind (soundmind.app) Pre-Seed -101 (101.xyz) Pre-Seed
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
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