A former NEA partner and a former Uber exec just closed their $140 million debut VC fund Dayna Grayson and Rachel Holt seemingly didn’t have the best timing. It was late in 2019 when the two, who met six years ago in Washington through a mutual acquaintance, decided to act on earlier conversations and start a fund together called Construct Capital. At the time, Grayson spied an opportunity to create a new venture brand that focused largely on the types of manufacturing-related deals that she was funding inside of the investing giant NEA, which she joined in 2012. Holt, who’d joined Uber in 2011, rising from a city general manager in Washington to the eventual head of the company’s mobility unit in 2018, was also ready for a change and excited about the prospect of investing full time, having been brought into NEA by Grayson to scout out nascent deals on the side.