ABOUT NEW ENTERPRISE PARTNERS
New Enterprise Partners was built around a straightforward belief: the best advice about building companies usually comes from people who have been responsible for building them.
OUR STORY
Our principals have spent their careers starting businesses, leading teams, developing products, creating partnerships, raising capital and completing transactions.
NEP puts capital and operating experience behind founders and businesses with meaningful potential. We are selective because useful partnerships require fit.
THE EXPERIENCE
Tom Ferrara’s experience sits at the intersection of growth strategy, execution, investing, technology, performance marketing and strategic partnerships.
The perspective behind NEP comes from starting businesses, building teams, creating distribution, raising and investing capital, working through growth and seeing transactions through.
Tom co-founded and led CUnet, bringing performance marketing, lead management and technology to education institutions. He later co-founded Edufficient, a business centered on accountable customer acquisition and media performance. Both companies were acquired.
Explore company outcomesTom has built teams, developed products, structured partnerships and helped move opportunities from plans to operating results. He also founded CareerEngine, extending that work into career technology.
Operator experience begins when the recommendation has to work.
Experience as a founder and CEO informs how Tom evaluates companies and works with their leaders. Useful capital can be paired with customer relationships, distribution insight, operating judgment and help executing when the situation calls for it.
Explore investingBOTH SIDES OF THE TABLE
The same decision feels different from each seat around the table.
Raised capital and answered to investors.
Carried responsibility for people, customers and performance.
Evaluated opportunities and placed capital behind entrepreneurs.
Worked with leadership through strategy, growth and financing.
Put plans into practice with teams and partners.
Navigated setbacks, pivots and successful transactions.
THE NEP ADVANTAGE
NEP was built around what it takes to turn an opportunity into an operating result.
Find the markets, products, channels and business models that can create durable value.
Turn strategy into accountable initiatives, teams, partnerships and measurable progress.
Back founders where capital and practical experience can both be useful.
Build distribution, customer access and strategic alliances.
Bring judgment formed while building and leading businesses.
Focus on stronger, more durable companies rather than a presentation alone.
THE NEXT CONVERSATION
We’ve built companies, raised and invested capital, developed products, acquired customers, created partnerships and completed exits. That experience changes how we work with founders.
WHAT SHAPES OUR WORK
We selectively invest where the founder, opportunity and economics create conviction.
Our perspective comes from operating companies, not simply analyzing them.
When useful and agreed, we can help move from strategy to implementation.
PARTNERSHIP
Founders do not need another person trying to run their company from the outside.
Experienced investors can be useful at critical moments: making an introduction, testing a strategy, recruiting an executive or working through a difficult decision. Our goal is to be valuable when needed and stay out of the way when we are not.
THE NEXT CONVERSATION
Track record creates perspective. Every new founder, company and market must earn its own outcome.