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New Enterprise Associates raises $2.6B VC fund

TechCrunch reckons that NEA's 14th fund may be the largest in venture capital history.

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New Enterprise Associates, one of the world's largest venture capital firms, has raised $2.6 billion for NEA 14, its 14th venture capital fund, TechCrunch reported this evening.

TechCrunch figures the new fund may be the largest in venture capital history, beating out a $2.56 billion fund that Oak Investment Partners raised in 2006.

The new fund will have a pretty broad deployment target, New Enterprise Associates partner Tony Florence told TechCrunch.

"From a sector perspective we will continue to be very enterprise-focused, but also very, very active in the consumer Internet space, where there are certainly some newer areas of excitement," he said.

NEA recently helped lead a Series A venture capital financing round for AVOS Systems, the Internet venture started by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. The VC is also backing the Experiment Fund, an early stage seed fund at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.