Accel (venture capital firm)

Last updated
Accel
Private Ownership
Industry Venture capital
Founded1983
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Products Venture capital, Growth capital
Website www.accel.com

Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, [1] [2] India [3] and China (through a partnership with International Data Group (IDG-Accel)). [4]

Contents

Accel has funded technology companies including Facebook, [5] Slack, [6] Dropbox, [7] Atlassian, [8] Flipkart, [9] Supercell, [10] Spotify, [11] Etsy, [12] Braintree/Venmo, [13] Vox Media, [14] Lynda.com, [15] Qualtrics, [16] DJI, [17] Cloudera, [18] Jet.com, [19] Ethos, [20] GoFundMe, [21] Vectra Networks Inc. [22] FabHotels, BrowserStack, [23] Vinculum Group, [24] Instana, [25] CleverTap [26] and Egyptian Instabug. [27]

History

In 1983, Accel was founded by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz. [28] The co-founders developed the firm's "Prepared Mind" investment philosophy based on the Louis Pasteur quote "Chance favors the prepared mind.", [29] which requires "deep focus [30] " and a disciplined and informed approach to investing. [31]

In 2000, Accel entered a joint-venture with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to form Accel-KKR a technology-focused private equity investment firm focused on control investments in middle-market companies. [32]

In 2001, Accel opened its London office as a separate fund, to invest in European technology companies, [33] focusing on Series A and Series B investments. [34] Its European investments include Avito (acquired by Naspers for $1.2 billion), [35] BlaBlaCar, [36] Deliveroo, [37] Spotify and Supercell (acquired by Tencent for $8.6 billion), among others.

In addition to Accel's continued investments in early-stage startups from the Accel early stage fund, the firm announced a $480 million growth fund in December 2008, focused on growth equity opportunities in information technology, the internet, digital media, mobile, networking, software, and services. [38]

In March 2016, Accel raised $2 billion, $500 million for an early stage venture fund and $1.5 billion for growth investments. [39] In April 2016, Accel raised a separate $500 million fund for investments in Europe and Israel. [40] In November 2016, Accel's India arm closed its fifth fund with $450 million, about two years after closing its fourth fund with $325 million. [41] [42]

In May 2019 Accel closed a $575 million fund, which led to financing Series A of European and Israel startups. The round was the largest in the region and the total amount of funds managed by Accel reached $3 billion. [43]

Portfolio

Accel is a venture capital firm that concentrates on the following technology sectors: [44] [45]

As of 2020, Accel had 59 unicorns and 7 decacorns in its portfolio. The biggest number of portfolio companies are American startups, but they also have startups from 25 other countries in their portfolio. [46]

Investments

Accel works with seed, early and growth-stage investments. [47] Its seed and early stage investments include Cloudera, Dropbox, Dropcam, Facebook, Flipkart, Jet.com, Podium, Webflow [48] and Slack. The firm’s growth capital investments focus on more developed companies that require a larger amount of capital to expand their business. [49] Examples include Atlassian, DJI and Qualtrics.

Recent exits include:

Though the brand is one, there are at least 4 different, independent legal entities. In the US, it is Accel Management Co. Inc. based in Palo Alto, California. In London, there are Accel London Management Limited and Accel Partners Management LLP. There is also IDG-Accel China, legally IDG VC Management Ltd, located in Hong Kong. [70]

Geographies

Accel's US fund is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in San Francisco, California. [71] Accel's European fund is headquartered in London, England and Accel's India fund is headquartered in Bangalore , India. [72] In addition to the U.S., Accel has investments across in France, [73] Germany, [74] Israel, [75] Australia, [76] New Zealand, [77] Brazil, [78] Canada, [79] China, [80] Finland, India, Switzerland [81] and more.

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