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 to form Accel-KKR 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, BlaBlaCar, Deliveroo, Spotify and Supercell, 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
Security
Customer care services
Investments
Accel works with seed, early and growth-stage investments. Its seed and early stage investments include Cloudera, Dropbox, Dropcam, Facebook, Flipkart, Jet.com, Podium, Webflow and Slack. The firm’s growth capital investments focus on more developed companies that require a larger amount of capital to expand their business. Examples include Atlassian, DJI and Qualtrics. Recent exits include:
Arista Networks: IPO valuation of $2.7 billion in 2014
Atlassian: IPO valuation of $4.4 billion in 2015
Avito: acquired by Naspers for $1.2 billion in 2015
Braintree: acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013
Krux: acquired by Salesforce for $700 million in 2016
Lynda.com: acquired by LinkedIn 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
Supercell: acquired by Softbank for $5.5 billion in 2015 and acquired by Tencent for $8.6 billion in 2016
Trulia: 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.
Legal entities
According to its website, Accel is a venture capital firm. 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.
