Stewart Alsop
In a memo to staffers, Alsop said he will leave New Enterprise Associates by the end of the year to "see if I can design a working life for myself that is focused entirely on working with a few early-stage companies, whether that is in a smaller partnership or something more individualized." A spokeswoman for the firm confirmed his pending departure.
NEA is one of Silicon Valley's more prominent venture capital firms. The firm has about $6 billion in active management, according to its Web site. Over the years, it has put money into, among others companies, contract manufacturing giant Flextronics, PMC-Sierra and Silicon Graphics Inc.
More recent investments include solar-energy specialist Konarka, TiVo, Salesforce.com and Chinese chip giant Semiconductor Manufacturing International.
NEA definitely has a brainy twist. Arno Penzias, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1978 for his work in helping support the big-bang theory, is a venture partner, as is Forest Baskett, formerly the chief technology officer at SGI and a professor of engineering at Stanford University.
Alsop had been one of the more visible partners in the firm, with a rising interest in consumer electronics. He led the firm's investment in TiVo and formerly sat on the company's board. Prior to NEA, he served as editor in chief of InfoWorld.
