Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

firm. Accel works with

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

and

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, with additional operating funds in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

(through a partnership with International Data Group (IDG-Accel)). Accel has funded technology companies including

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

, Slack,

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007 ...

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australian software company that develops products for software developers, project managers and other software development teams. The company is domiciled in Delaware, with global headquarters in Sydney, Austra ...

Flipkart Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categorie ...

Supercell A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms ( ...

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

Etsy Etsy, Inc. is an American e-commerce company focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home décor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft ...

, Braintree/

Venmo Venmo is an American mobile payment service founded in 2009 and owned by PayPal since 2013. Venmo was aimed at friends and family who wish to split bills, e.g. for movies, dinner, rent, or event tickets etc. Account holders can transfer funds ...

Vox Media Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company based in Washington, D.C., and New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''SB Nation'' (a sports blog network founded in 2005 b ...

Lynda.com LinkedIn Learning is an American online learning provider. It provides video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative, and business skills. It is a subsidiary of LinkedIn. All the courses on LinkedIn fall into four categories: Bus ...

Qualtrics Qualtrics is an American experience management company, with co-headquarters in Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah, in the United States. The company was founded in 2002 by Scott M. Smith, Ryan Smith, Jared Smith, and Stuart Orgill. Qualtri ...

DJI SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. or Shenzhen DJI Sciences and Technologies Ltd. ( zh, c=深圳大疆创新科技有限公司, p=Shēnzhèn Dà Jiāng Chuàngxīn Kējì Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) in full, more popularly known as its trade name DJI, which s ...

Cloudera Cloudera, Inc. is an American software company providing enterprise data management systems that make significant use of Apache Hadoop. As of January 31, 2021, the company had approximately 1,800 customers. History Cloudera, Inc. was formed on J ...

Jet.com Jet.com was an American e-commerce company headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company was co-founded in 2014 by Marc Lore (who had previously sold Diapers.com to Amazon.com), along with Mike Hanrahan and Nate Faust. Jet.com raised $820 mi ...

, Ethos,

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the be ...

Vectra Networks Inc. Vectra AI, Inc. is a cybersecurity company headquartered in San Jose, California. History Vectra was founded in 2010 as TraceVector LLC in New York City and was incorporated in 2012 under the name Vectra Networks. Products The Cognito pl ...

FabHotels FabHotels is a network of 3 star budget hotels in India, having its headquarters in Gurugram. As of November 2022 it operates in more than 66 cities of India with 900+ Hotels, including major cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, K ...

BrowserStack BrowserStack is an Indian cloud web and mobile testing platform that provides developers with the ability to test their websites and mobile applications across on-demand browsers, operating systems and real mobile devices. History The subsc ...

, Vinculum Group, Instana, CleverTap, HopIn and Egyptian

Instabug Instabug is a software company that provides bug reporting, app performance monitoring, crash reporting, in-app chats, and user surveys for mobile apps. The company was founded in 2014. As of September 2019, Instabug has reached over 25,000 co ...

History

In 1983, Accel was founded by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz. The co-founders developed the firm's "Prepared Mind" investment philosophy based on the Louis Pasteur quote "Chance favors the prepared mind.", which requires "deep focus" and a disciplined and informed approach to investing. In 2000, Accel entered a joint-venture with

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strate ...

to form

Accel-KKR Accel-KKR is an American technology-focused private equity firm with over $14 billion in total assets under management. The firm invests primarily in middle-market software and technology-enabled services businesses, providing capital for buyo ...

a technology-focused private equity investment firm focused on control investments in middle-market companies. In 2001, Accel opened its London office as a separate fund, to invest in European technology companies, focusing on Series A and Series B investments. Its European investments include Avito (acquired by

Naspers Naspers Limited is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town, with interests in online retail, publishing and venture capital investment. Naspers' principal shareholder is its ...

for $1.2 billion),

BlaBlaCar BlaBlaCar is a French online marketplace for carpooling. Its website and mobile apps connect drivers and passengers willing to travel together between cities and share the cost of the journey. The company does not own any vehicles; it is a b ...

Deliveroo Deliveroo is a British online food delivery company founded by Will Shu and Greg Orlowski in 2013 in London, England. It operates in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait ...

, HopIn,

and

(acquired by

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the wo ...

for $8.6 billion) and

UiPath UiPath is a global software company that makes robotic process automation (RPA) software. It was founded in Bucharest, Romania, by Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă. Its headquarters are in New York City. The company's software monitors user acti ...

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. In March 2016, Accel raised $2 billion, $500 million for an early stage venture fund and $1.5 billion for growth investments. In April 2016, Accel raised a separate $500 million fund for investments in Europe and Israel. 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. 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.

Portfolio

Accel is a venture capital firm that concentrates on the following technology sectors: * Consumer * Infrastructure * Media * Mobile *

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

* Security * Customer care services * Enterprise software * E-commerce

Investments

Accel works with seed, early and growth-stage investments. Its seed and early stage investments include

Dropcam Dropcam, Inc. was an American technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company is known for its Wi-Fi video streaming cameras, Dropcam and Dropcam Pro, that allow people to view live feeds through Dropcam’s cloud-based ...

Podium A podium (plural podiums or podia) is a platform used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from the Greek ''πόδι'' (foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. Podiums can also be used ...

, Webflow and Slack. The firm's

growth capital Growth capital (also called expansion capital and growth equity) is a type of private equity investment, usually a minority investment, in relatively mature companies that are looking for capital to expand or restructure operations, enter new mark ...

investments focus on more developed companies that require a larger amount of capital to expand their business. Examples include

and

. Recent exits include: *

Arista Networks Arista Networks (formerly Arastra) is an American computer networking company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company designs and sells multilayer network switches to deliver software-defined networking (SDN) for large datacenter ...

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

valuation of $2.7 billion in 2014 *

: IPO valuation of $4.4 billion in 2015 *

Avito Avito is a Russian classified advertisements website with sections devoted to general goods for sale, jobs, real estate, personals, cars for sale, and services. Avito is the most popular classifieds site in Russia and is the biggest classifieds s ...

: acquired by

for $1.2 billion in 2015 * Braintree: acquired by

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

for $800 million in 2013 * Cloudera: IPO valuation of $2.3 billion in 2017 * Despegar: IPO valuation of $1.97 billion in 2017 *

: IPO valuation of $1.78 billion in 2015 * Meta: IPO valuation of $104 billion in 2012 * ForeScout: IPO valuation of $935+ million in 2017 *

Fusion-io Fusion-io, Inc. was a computer hardware and software systems company (acquired by SanDisk Corporation in 2014) based in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, that designed and manufactured products using flash memory technology. The Fusion was marketed ...

: acquired by

SanDisk SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...

for $1.1 billion in 2014 * Iron Planet: acquired by Ritchie Bros. for approximately $758.5 million in 2017 * Jet: acquired by

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

for $3.3 billion in 2016 *

Krux Krux is a Swedish doom metal band formed by Leif Edling after Candlemass fell apart for the second time preceding their reunion tour. Members * Leif Edling – bass (since 2002) * Mats Levén – vocals (since 2002) * Peter Stjärnvind � ...

: acquired by

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...

for $700 million in 2016 *

: acquired by

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

at a $1.5 billion valuation in 2015 * Legendary Pictures: acquired by Wanda Group for $3.5 billion in 2016 * Rovio: IPO valuation of $1 billion in 2017 *

: acquired by Softbank for $5.5 billion in 2015 and acquired by Tencent for $8.6 billion in 2016 *

Trulia Trulia is an American online real estate marketplace which is a subsidiary of Zillow. It facilitates buyers and renters to find homes and neighborhoods across the United States through recommendations, local insights, and map overlays that offer ...

: IPO valuation of $448 million and acquired by Zillow for $3.5 billion in 2014 * Facilio: financed for $6,4 million together with

Tiger Global Tiger Global Management, LLC (often referred to as Tiger Global and formerly known as Tiger Technology) is an American investment firm. It mainly focuses on Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries. Background and histo ...

Legal entities

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.

Geographies

Accel's US fund is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in San Francisco, California. Accel's European fund is headquartered in London, England and Accel's India fund is headquartered in Bangalore, India. In addition to the U.S., Accel has investments across in France, Germany, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, China, Finland, India, Switzerland and more.

References

External links

Accel
(company website) {{Venture capital firms Venture capital firms of the United States Private equity firms of the United States Financial services companies based in California Companies based in Palo Alto, California Financial services companies established in 1983 1983 establishments in California Venture capital firms of the United Kingdom