Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global

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

firm. Accel works with

startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

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

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

and

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, with additional operating funds in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, and India.

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 Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, Fermentation, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the la ...

quote "chance favors the prepared mind", which they say requires "deep focus" and a disciplined and informed approach to investing. In 2005, Accel Partners under the leadership of Jim Breyer, invested $12.7 million in

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, valuing the company at $98 million. This investment became one of the most lucrative in venture capital history with Accel’s stake increasing to $8 billion by 2012.

Investments and fundraises

In January 2025, Accel raised $650 million early stage fund for startups in India and South East Asia Accel focuses on enterprise,

SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike oth ...

, and consumer investments and works with seed, early, growth-stage companies worldwide. The firm's

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

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

Geographies

Accel has offices in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

and

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, California;

, England; and

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

, India. 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 private-equity and investment company. , the firm had completed private-equity investments in portfolio companies with approximately $710 billion of total ...

to form Accel-KKR, an independently operated technology-focused private equity investment firm focused on control investments in middle-market companies. Similarly, in the same year, Accel partnered with IDG Capital to create IDG-Accel, a joint venture focusing on early-stage and growth investments in the Chinese market. Both Accel-KKR and IDG-Accel now operate independently.

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