Accel Partners

Accel Partners
Private Ownership
Industry Venture capital
Founded 1983
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 funds companies from inception through the growth stage. 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]

Accel has funded more than 300 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] and GoFundMe.[20]

History

In 1983, Accel was founded by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz.[21] The co-founders developed the firm's "Prepared Mind" investment philosophy based on the Louis Pasteur quote "Chance favors the prepared mind.",[22] which requires "deep focus[23]" and a disciplined and informed approach to investing.[24]

In 2000, Accel entered into a joint-venture with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to form Accel-KKR a technology-focused private equity investment firm focused on control investments of middle-market companies.[25]

In 2001, Accel opened its first London office to invest in European technology companies,[26] focusing on Series A and Series B investments.[27] Its European investments include Avito (acquired by Naspers for $1.2 billion),[28] BlaBlaCar,[29] Deliveroo,[30] 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 X early stage fund, the firm announced a $480 million growth fund in December 2008, focused on growth equity opportunities in information technology, internet, digital media, mobile, networking, software, and services.[31]

In March 2016, Accel raised $2 billion, $500 million for an early stage venture fund and $1.5 billion for a growth investments.[32] In April 2016, Accel raised a separate $500 million fund for investments in Europe and Israel.[33] 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.[34]

Portfolio

Accel is a venture capital firm that concentrates on the following technology sectors:[35][36]

Investments

Accel specializes in seed, early and growth-stage investments.[37] Its seed and early stage investments include Cloudera, Dropbox, Dropcam, Facebook, Flipkart, Jet.com and Slack. The firm’s growth capital investments focus on more developed companies that require a larger amount of capital to expand their business.[38] Examples include Atlassian, DJI and Qualtrics.

Recent exits include:

Geographies

Accel is headquartered in Palo Alto, California,[51] with offices in San Francisco, California, London, England and Bangalore, India.[52] In addition to the U.S., Accel has investments across in France,[53] Germany,[54] Israel,[55] Australia,[56] New Zealand,[57] Brazil,[58] Canada,[59] China,[60] Finland, India, Switzerland[61] and more.

References

  1. ↑ "Accel raises $500 million fund to double down on Series A and B rounds in Europe and Israel - Tech.eu". Retrieved 2016-09-12.
  2. ↑ "Private Equity Week Wire for Tuesday 6/12 - PE HUB". PE HUB. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  3. ↑ Russell, Jon. "Accel Announces New $305 Million Investment Fund For India". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-03-04.
  4. ↑ Mac, Ryan (March 19, 2014). "Accel Partners Raises New Funds Totaling Over $1 Billion As Facebook Investor Jim Breyer Reduces Role". Forbes.
  5. ↑ Levy, Ari. "Accel Facebook Bet Poised to Become Biggest Venture Profit: Tech". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  6. ↑ Loizos, Connie. "Andrew Braccia's Big Bet on Slack". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  7. ↑ "Dropbox - Dropbox Raises $250 Million in Series B Funding". Dropbox. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  8. ↑ Tam, Pui-Wing. "Accel Invests $60 Million in Atlassian". Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  9. ↑ "Flipkart raises $150m from Accel partners and Tiger Global at $850 million valuation". 2012-01-31. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  10. ↑ "Supercell is Accel's fastest growing company ever. (And it has a ball pit)". Pando. 2012-11-28. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  11. ↑ "SPOTIFY: Now It's A $1 Billion Company". Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  12. ↑ Schonfeld, Erick. "Etsy Raises $27 Million; Accel's Jim Breyer Joins Board". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  13. ↑ "Mobile Payments Startup Venmo Acquired by Braintree". 2012-08-16. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  14. ↑ Eldon, Eric. "Why Accel Is Leading A $40M Round In Vox Media, A Digital Content Company (!)". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  15. ↑ Empson, Rip. "After 17 Years, Education Platform Lynda.com Raises Its First Round Of Funding, $103M From Accel & Spectrum". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  16. ↑ Ha, Anthony. "Qualtrics Raises $70M From Accel And Sequoia: "The Biggest Software Company You Haven't Heard Of"?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  17. ↑ Reuters (2015-05-06). "Chinese Drone Maker DJI Gets $75 Million From Accel Partners". Recode. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  18. ↑ Wauters, Robin. "Cloudera Raises $5 Million Series A Round For Hadoop Commercialization". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  19. ↑ "The Man Who Knows Amazon's Brutal Tactics Better Than Anyone Just Sealed $80 Million In Funding For His New Company". Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  20. ↑ "GoFundMe Gets Undisclosed Funding Led by Accel Partners, TCV | Xconomy". 2015-06-24. Retrieved 2016-08-15.
  21. ↑ "Accel Team Jim Swartz".
  22. ↑ "A Venture Capitalist View of the Top 5 Entrepreneurial Energy Opportunities". Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  23. ↑ "Accel Partners, Venture Capital Fund: Andrew Braccia, Investments". www.fundingpost.com. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  24. ↑ "Accel Boosts Team - PE Hub". 2013-07-24. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  25. ↑ "History of Kohlberg, Kravis, Robert & Co.".
  26. ↑ Kapner, Suzanne (2001-05-30). "U.S. Venture Capital Sees Treasure in Europe". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-08-23.
  27. ↑ Dillet, Romain. "Venture firm Accel just raised a new $500 million European fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-23.
  28. ↑ "Naspers acquires Russia's Avito in $1.2 billion transaction". Retrieved 2016-08-23.
  29. ↑ Rao, Leena. "Accel Leads $10M Round In European Airbnb For Car Ride-Sharing, BlablaCar". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-23.
  30. ↑ "Deliveroo grabs $25M to bring its premium meal delivery service to more cities". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-08-23.
  31. ↑ "Accel closes two funds totaling more than $1B".
  32. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/business/dealbook/accel-raises-2-billion-to-invest-in-start-ups.html?_r=0
  33. ↑ Dillet, Romain. "Venture firm Accel just raised a new $500 million European fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  34. ↑ Loizos, Connie. "Accel India closes its newest fund with $450 million — and in record time". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-12-03.
  35. ↑ "Accel". www.accel.com. Retrieved 2016-08-12.
  36. ↑ "Accel Partners Teardown". 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2016-08-12.
  37. ↑ "Accel Partners Teardown". 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  38. ↑ Loizos, Connie. "Venture firm Accel Partners just raised $2B from its investors". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  39. ↑ "The Strategist". www.thestrategist.media. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  40. ↑ ChrisSpillane, Ilya Khrennikov Christopher Spillane. "Naspers Takes Control of Russia's Avito in $1.2 Billion Purchase". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-09-06.
  41. ↑ Rao, Leena; Perez, Sarah; Lunden, Ingrid. "EBay's PayPal Acquires Payments Gateway Braintree For $800M In Cash". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-09-06.
  42. ↑ "Etsy prices its IPO at $16 per share, making it worth $1.78 billion". Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  43. ↑ Raice, Shayndi; Das, Anupreeta; Letzing, John (2012-05-18). "Facebook Prices IPO at Record Value". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  44. ↑ Cao, Jing; King, Ian. "SanDisk to Buy Fusion-io for $1.1 Billion". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-09-06.
  45. ↑ Selina_y_wang, Shannon Pettypiece spettypi Selina Wang. "Wal-Mart to Acquire Jet.com for $3.3 Billion to Fight Amazon". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  46. ↑ "LinkedIn Enters Ed Tech with Lynda.com Acquisition – Its Largest Acquisition Ever". 2015-04-09. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  47. ↑ "It's Official: China's Wanda Acquires Legendary Entertainment for $3.5 Billion". Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  48. ↑ Osawa, Juro; Needleman, Sarah E. (2016-06-21). "Tencent Seals Deal to Buy 'Clash of Clans' Developer Supercell for $8.6 Billion". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  49. ↑ "'A sigh of relief' for Silicon Valley as consumer-Web stock Trulia soars in IPO". Retrieved 2016-09-06.
  50. ↑ Christie, Les (2014-07-28). "Zillow buys Trulia for $3.5 billion". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2016-09-06.
  51. ↑ "Accel". www.accel.com. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  52. ↑ "Accel". www.accel.com. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  53. ↑ "Boosting the French Ecosystem, by Philippe Botteri (Accel Partners) - Bonjour la French Tech". 2015-10-15. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  54. ↑ "Accel Partners is coming to town and here is how you meet them". 2014-07-09. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  55. ↑ "Accel Partners hires Facebook exec to focus funds on Israel". Geektime. 2016-06-08. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  56. ↑ "Inside Accel Partners' $US200m search for Australia's next tech titan". 2014-10-07. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  57. ↑ Ryall, Jenni. "New Zealand startup Xero scores $147 million from Silicon Valley investor". Mashable. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  58. ↑ Shieber, Jonathan. "Accel Renews Commitment To Brazilian Startups With $10M EduK Investment". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  59. ↑ "As Canadian startups grow, local venture capital funding dries up". Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  60. ↑ Barboza, David. "Accel's Breyer to Partner With Venture Capital Firm in China". Retrieved 2016-09-15.
  61. ↑ "100 Tech Investors Active in the Nordics - Standout Capital". 2014-04-02. Retrieved 2016-09-15.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.