Athira Sethu
Kochi, 2 January 2024
US-based venture capital firm, Accel raised a sum of $650 million to expand further on investments in India as part of its eighth India fund. Accel raised the money for the seventh India fund some nine months prior in March 2022.
Accel is one of India’s most successful venture capital firms, having made investments in all the well-known companies such as Flipkart, Swiggy, and Freshworks. Typically, the firm has been one of the major investors in a lot of portfolio companies. One example is where Accel put in $4 million in Flipkart when it was just valued at $4 million, and today the company is over $36 billion. Accel also participated in the seed fundings of Swiggy, particularly at an early period when the food delivery company was worth only $2 million. Swiggy later went public in 2024 after reaching a market value of $11.3 billion.
As of 2022, the cumulative value of the companies backed by Accel exceeded $100 billion. The Indian startup ecosystem has changed dramatically since Accel began investing more than a decade ago. One big change has been that many more companies are going public. Several Accel-backed companies, including the manufacturing platform Zetwerk and the jeweler Bluestone, are looking to list on the stock market this year.
According to the fund house, India is becoming an important center for the technology IPO (Initial Public Offerings), particularly with growing capital markets and the innovative ecosystem.
Accel has been investing more in rural India lately. This strategy is against the conventional thinking that businesses in small towns and cities cannot be viable. Accel believes that markets can be significant and is putting its money where its mouth is by betting on businesses that will serve consumers in these markets over the long run.
