Accel launches $650 Mn fund for early-stage startups in India and SEA

Venture capital firm Accel has unveiled its eighth fund, allocating $650 million to support early-stage startups in India and Southeast Asia. This initiative reflects the firm's commitment to nurturing innovation across sectors such as enterprise AI, consumer services, fintech, and manufacturing.

In March 2022, the VC firm announced its seventh India-focused fund worth $650 million to focus on early, seed, and pre-seed stage startups.

According to Accel, the latest fund attracted participation from 131 undisclosed investors, highlighting strong interest in the region's entrepreneurial ventures.

Accel's investment strategy targets founders developing enterprise AI solutions that leverage India's extensive IT services expertise to offer automation products. Additionally, the firm aims to support consumer-oriented companies, wealth management startups, and manufacturing enterprises, showcasing a diversified approach to fostering innovation.

With over 16 years of operations in India and Southeast Asia, Accel has partnered with companies that have reimagined industries from e-commerce and SaaS to manufacturing. The fund has made substantial investments in companies across sectors such as Amagi, Acko, BlackBuck, BlueStone, BrowserStack, Cult.fit, Flipkart, Freshworks, Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk. The fund claims to be the first institutional investor in 80% of its portfolio companies.

Recently, the firm realized a substantial return by tendering 10.5 million shares during Swiggy's IPO, achieving a 3391% gain based on its initial investment.

In recent years, Accel has launched several key initiatives. The firm’s open-source content and community platform, SeedToScale, democratizes company-building knowledge with actionable insights from successful founders, operators, and industry leaders. Accel’s early-stage scaling program, Accel Atoms, now in its fourth iteration, has supported 36 startups that have collectively raised over $200 million to date.