Accel closes fifth India VC fund at $450m
Accel Partners has closed its fifth India-focused venture capital fund at $450 million, less than two years after raising $305 million for the fourth vehicle.
The new fund will continue Accel's strategy of targeting in seed and early-stage start-ups. The firm said that more than 80% of the 100-plus investments it has made in India since 2005 started out as seed deals. It will concentrate on consumer, enterprise and software-as-a-service (SaaS), financial technology, business-to-business services and healthcare companies.
"We enjoy working with start-ups from the seed stage, and gladly help in the journey with our entrepreneurs as they mature and scale their businesses. These critical periods of development are where we believe we can have the most enduring impact and that is what keeps us motivated," the Accel India team said in a statement.
The firm added that it sees more favorable tailwinds in India than ever before, with business-friendly government policies contributing to strong long-term fundamentals, and entrepreneurs who are increasingly building products and technologies for global and local markets. As a result, start-ups are able to scale faster.
The acquisition of Accel investee CommonFloor by classifieds site Quikr earlier this year continued the trend of consolidation in the firm's portfolio and in certain segments of the Indian technology sector generally. Accel has previously seen TaxiForSure acquired by Ola and Myntra bought by Flipkart. The firm was also an early investor in Flipkart itself.
Other early-stage start-ups backed by Accel that have gone on to become market leaders include BookMyShow, BlackBuck, BlueStone, FreshDesk, Mitra Biotech, Portea, Power2SME, PropTiger and Swiggy.
The firm boosted its local presence in 2008 with the acquisition of Erasmic Venture Fund. Three Erasmic executives - Mahendran Balachandran, Subrata Mitra and Prashanth Prakash - remain with the firm. Abhinav Chaturvedi, Anand Daniel, Dinesh Katiyar, Shekhar Kirani, Prashanth Prakash and Barath Shankar Subramanian make up the nine-strong Bangalore team.
Accel also has offices in Silicon Valley and Bangalore. Its investment team is complemented by a portfolio services team comprising experts in human resources, product management, technology, design, marketing, and data science.
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