Vanessa Larco

Who they are

Vanessa Larco is co-founder of Premise VC — a Georgia Tech CS grad who led Speech Recognition Experience at Xbox Kinect before spending eight years as a Partner at NEA, then leaving to start her own fund with Mercedes Bent.

Person

Vanessa studied Computer Science at Georgia Tech (BS, 2008) and went straight into product — first at Microsoft Xbox, where she led Speech Recognition Experience on Kinect, then at Disney Social/Playdom as a Gaming Studio Lead, and later at Box as Director of Product Management. Somewhere in that stretch she also founded a mobile gaming startup that was eventually acquired. She joined NEA around 2016 when the firm was already one of the largest VC shops in the world, and spent eight years there — rising to Senior Partner — before announcing her departure in early 2025. In 2025 she co-founded Premise VC with Mercedes Bent, an early-stage firm focused on consumer tech (B2C) and consumer enablement tech (B2B2C), backing technical founders at pre-seed and seed. She writes for TechCrunch and publishes regularly on LinkedIn, covering AI's impact on work, SaaS pricing dynamics, founder-VC communication, and career transitions into startups. She's spoken at HumanX (2026), FinovateFall, and various fireside chats — her public voice is practitioner-level, not abstract. The through-line: a CS-trained operator who built products before she ever wrote a check, and now bets on the builders she most resembles.

Company

The most recent development at NEA is its April 2026 participation in NinjaOne's Series C. In 2025 NEA led several large rounds: a $500 million Series G for Clio at a $5 billion valuation (following Clio's acquisition of vLex), a $300 million round for Strive Health, an $18 million Series A for AI compliance startup Zania, and a $9.3 million seed for health intelligence startup Elion. NEA also participated in a Series C extension for Perplexity AI as it crossed a $3 billion valuation. The firm — ranked #8 in the 2026 global Power Law — is clearly doubling down on AI applications across fintech, legaltech, and enterprise software. That said, Vanessa left NEA in early 2025, so this is the firm's current posture rather than her active context.

Market

NEA manages over $27 billion in assets under management as of December 2024, with a portfolio spanning 153 unicorns and 22 decacorns across technology and healthcare. Andreessen Horowitz is a notable competitor and co-investor in the same deal flow. The broader VC market is consolidating around AI-native bets, and NEA's 2025 deal activity reflects that — legal tech, security GRC, AI search, and kidney care all touched by the same AI-embedding thesis.

Network

Vanessa's most concrete named relationship is Mercedes Bent, her co-founder at Premise VC — the two left their prior firms together to back consumer startups with an AI lens. At NEA she was co-appointed to senior investing roles alongside Aaron Jacobson, suggesting overlapping technology investment mandates. She has also been active in the All Raise community as a mentor and featured investor.

Mercedes Bent· Co-founder, Premise VC
Aaron Jacobson· Former NEA colleague, shared technology investment focus

How they likely show up

Eight years at NEA — a medium-tenure arc that ended in a deliberate departure to co-found her own fund → she thinks in multi-year conviction cycles, not opportunistic pivots.
CS degree from Georgia Tech followed by hands-on PM roles at Xbox, Disney, and Box → she likely reads technical claims critically and expects founders to know their stack.
Founded a mobile gaming startup (later acquired) while building a PM career → high agency; she's been on the operator side of a cap table, not just the investor side.
Regular TechCrunch contributor and active LinkedIn author on AI, SaaS pricing, and founder-VC dynamics → comfortable being publicly opinionated; she's used to being the one giving the framework.
Speaker at HumanX 2026 and FinovateFall → engages with conference circuits that skew practitioner and fintech/AI — expects peers who have done the work, not just read the headlines.
Premise VC is focused on pre-seed and seed consumer tech with an AI thesis → she's in pattern-matching mode for early, technical, consumer-facing bets right now.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific TechCrunch piece or LinkedIn article she wrote — she publishes with a point of view, and noting a concrete argument she made signals you've done more than a Google search.
→ Ask about the operator-to-investor translation — she's written about coming into VC from a product background, and it's a through-line she's clearly proud of.
→ Don't treat Premise as 'NEA lite' — she left a $27B firm to build something intentionally smaller and more focused; she'll notice if you conflate the two.
→ Bring a consumer or AI angle — her fund thesis is specifically consumer tech and consumer enablement, so enterprise-only framings will land flat.
→ She's co-coaching women entrepreneurs as a personal interest; if you have a relevant community angle, it's worth mentioning — but only if it's genuine.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Premise VC launch with Mercedes Bent — she left one of the world's largest VC firms after eight years specifically to back pre-seed and seed consumer tech with an AI focus. That's a deliberate downshift worth asking about.
Reference the Xbox Kinect chapter — she led Speech Recognition Experience on a product that was ahead of its time in voice UI. Given she's now investing in AI-native consumer companies, that early bet has aged interestingly.
Mention a specific TechCrunch piece she wrote on AI's impact on work or SaaS pricing — she publishes with a concrete argument, and engaging with the actual claim rather than the general topic signals you've read her, not just about her.

Discovery questions

You spent eight years at NEA backing enterprise and femtech — what convinced you that pre-seed consumer was the right focus for Premise, and how different is the diligence motion at that stage?
You led Speech Recognition Experience at Xbox Kinect well before voice AI was mainstream — how does that PM experience shape how you evaluate AI-native consumer products today?
You write openly about founder-VC communication dynamics. What's the most common thing founders get wrong when pitching consumer AI companies right now?

Avoid

Don't lead with questions about NEA's current portfolio activity — she departed in early 2025 and is building Premise; treating her as a proxy for NEA's strategy will signal you haven't tracked her actual move.

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