Accel India raises $650 mn for seventh venture capital fund
- The seventh fund is higher than the $550 million it raised for its sixth vehicle in 2019 and $450 million it raised for its fifth fund in 2016.
Accel India, an early backer of startups such as Flipkart and Freshworks, on Wednesday said it has raised $650 million in commitments for its seventh fund to invest in new opportunities across India and Southeast Asia.
The seventh fund is higher than the $550 million it raised for its sixth vehicle in 2019 and $450 million it raised for its fifth fund in 2016.
With the latest fund, Accel's commitment to the startup ecosystem in the region has increased to over $2 billion, said Accel in a statement.
The new fund will seek to invest in next generation e-commerce, emerging software as a service (SaaS), consumer fintech, global business to business (B2B) marketplaces, digital health and Web3.
Accel, which typically comes in at a seed stage and then keeps on making follow-on investments, has been the first institutional investor in more than 87% of all portfolio companies.
Flipkart and Freshworks are examples of companies backed by Accel from their initial seed rounds through all subsequent financings. Accel also got bumper returns from these two bets as Flipkart got acquired by Walmart in the biggest M&A deal in the startup ecosystem in India and Freshworks floated its initial public offering (IPO) last year on Nasdaq.
Accel has also been the first venture capital firm to back companies such as Acko, Blackbuck, BookMyShow, Bounce, BrowserStack, Clevertap, Curefit, Mindtickle, Moglix, Ninjacart, Portea, Rupeek, Samunnati, StanzaLiving, UrbanClap and Zenoti among others.
In the past years, Accel has been investing in the Southeast Asian region as well. Its investments there include in investing app Pluang and quick commerce startup Astro.
"The opportunity to build breakout, innovative companies in this region is enormous, and Accel is looking forward to expanding on current partnerships as well as building new ones," the statement said. "In India and Southeast Asia we are the first institutional investor in over 85% of our investments, and 95% of our investments are Seed or Series A," the firm added.
Earlier this month, Accel India selected 14 startups as part of its first cohort of Atoms programme that was launched last year to make pre-seed funding in startups.
Last year, several early-stage VC firms announced fundraising milestones. Chiratae Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners and WaterBridge Ventures announced the final close of their new funds and Blume Ventures announced the first close.
The fundraising momentum is continuing in 2022 as well. Just last week, early-stage venture capital firm Prime Venture Partners marked the final close of its fourth fund at $120 million.
Earlier this year, IvyCap Ventures and pi Ventures also announced the first close of their new funds.
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First Published:2 Mar 2022, 03:23 PM IST
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