Dayna Grayson is an engineer, product designer, and investor in applications that improve worker productivity, focused primarily on IOT, analytics, manufacturing tech, security, and consumer products.

She led the firm’s early investments in and serves on the boards of DesktopMetal, Onshape, Framebridge, and Pocket (acquired by Mozilla), among others. Dayna is interested in how design accelerates adoption of new products and in 2013, she founded NEA’s Design Studio, the firm’s initiative in backing entrepreneurs with a design background. Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners where she championed companies including Camiant (acquired by Tekelec) and Tapjoy.

As an entrepreneur and engineer, Dayna started her career at Eye Response Technologies, a startup spun out of the University of Virginia that commercialized eye gaze tracking technology and was later acquired by Dynavox Mayer-Johnson.

As an operator and product designer, Dayna led product design of financial accounting products at Blackbaud (BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations. While Dayna was there, the company completed a successful public offering and is a standalone public company today.

Dayna serves as a Harvard Business School Venture Capital Partner and on the investment committee of the University of Virginia’s Seed Fund. Dayna has a BS from the University of Virginia in Systems Engineering and an MBA from Harvard Business School.