Accel (company)

For the acquired software company, see Accel Technologies.

Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global venture capital firm. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional offices in London,^[1][2] and India.^[3] The company's most notable investment was a $12.7 million investment in Facebook in May 2005 for 10% of the company, before the company had revenue.

Accel

Formerly	Accel Partners
Company type	Private
Industry	Venture capital
Founded	1983; 42 years ago (1983)
Headquarters	Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Products	Venture capital Growth capital
Number of employees	300 (2024)
Website	www.accel.com

Accel invests in enterprise, SaaS, and consumer companies in seed, early, and growth-stage worldwide.^[4]

History

In 1983, Accel was founded by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz.^[5] The co-founders developed the firm's "prepared mind" investment philosophy based on the Louis Pasteur quote "chance favors the prepared mind",^[6] which they say requires "deep focus" and a disciplined and informed approach to investing.^[7]

In 2000, Accel and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts formed Accel-KKR, an independently operated technology-focused private equity investment firm focused on control investments in middle-market companies.^[8] In the same year, Accel partnered with IDG Capital to create IDG-Accel, a joint venture focusing on early-stage and growth investments in the Chinese market.^[9]

In May 2005, Accel, under the leadership of Jim Breyer, invested $12.7 million for 10% of Facebook, before the company had revenue.^[10] This investment became one of the most lucrative in venture capital history and was worth $6.6 billion at the time of the company's initial public offering in 2012.^[11]

Investments and fundraises

In December 2019, the company raised $550 million in its 6th investment fund focused on India.^[12]

In May 2024, Accel raised a $650 million fund to invest in early-stage companies across Europe and Israel, with a focus on artificial intelligence and computer security. Fundraising was facilitated, in part, by the establishment of Accel's London office in 2000.^[13]

In January 2025, Accel raised a $650 million early stage fund for startups in India and South East Asia. This was the firm's 8th fund focused on India.^[14]

Notable investments

Year	Companies
2020s	Bumble,[15] Klaviyo,[16] Linear,[17] Synthesia,[18] H Company,[19] Vercel,[20] Tailscale,[21] Recurly,[22] Laravel,[23] Perplexity[24]
2010s	1Password,[25] Atlassian,[26] CrowdStrike,[27] Deliveroo,[28] Docusign,[29] Dropcam,[30] Fiverr,[31] Frame.io,[32] Freshworks[33] Jet.com,[34] Lynda,[35] Miro,[36] Qualtrics,[37] Scale AI,[38] Spotify,[39] Supercell,[40] Squarespace,[41] Swiggy,[42] Tenable,[43] UiPath,[44] Venmo[45]
2000s	Cloudera,[46] Dropbox,[47] Facebook,[48] Flipkart (acquired by Walmart),[49] Groupon,[50] Slack,[51] Kayak[52]
1980s-1990s	MetroPCS,[53] UUNet,[54] Polycom,[55] RealNetworks[56]