Accel Partners

Accel Partners is one of the leaders in the venture capital investment industry. The company's main office is located in Palo Alto, California, USA. Accel Partners offices in Bangalore, Beijing, London and Shanghai also work. The fund was founded in 1983 and participated in the financing of more than 300 successful companies, including Baidu, Facebook, Real Networks, Glam Media, ComScore, Macromedia and others.

History

2021

Investing in the Ermetic service, which reveals cyber attacks in the network of companies

On December 15, 2021, Ermetic, a cloud cybersecurity company, announced the closure of a $70 million funding round. It was headed by the Qumra Capital fund, Forgepoint Capital, Accel, Glilot Capital Partners, Northwest Venture Partners and the Target Global fund founded by Russians also took part in the transaction. The total amount of investments in the startup amounted to about $100 million. The company does not disclose its estimated value. More details here.

Investing in Remote Platform

In mid-July 2021, startup Remote which provides tools to manage the recruitment process, payroll, benefits and other services for technical and other specialists working in remote countries, whether contractors or full-time employees, raised $150 million. According to the CEO and co-founder of Remote, Job van der Voort, the estimate of the Remote startup has grown to $1 billion. More. here

Launch of $3 Billion Funds to Buy Early Start-ups

At the end of June 2021, Silicon Valley venture capital company Accel raised more than $3 billion for three new investment funds that will allow an investor to buy startups from the United States, Europe and Israel at an early stage. This decision reflects the policy of the company, which intends to "invest at the earliest possible stage, taking into account local players."

The venture capital firm has long been looking for new opportunities outside Silicon Valley and for many years has offices not only in the San Francisco area, but also in London with Bangalore. Thanks to its global policy, the company invests in companies located around the world.

Silicon Valley investment giant Accel launches $3 billion in funds to buy start-ups early

The European and Israeli fund for working with startups in the early stages received $650 million, the fund for working with startups in the early stages in the United States - $650 million, and the growth fund for more mature companies - $1.8 billion. The latter is an additional fund and is designed to work with the Leaders Global Fund, operating $2.3 billion and focused on later stages of investment.

Accel expects to support an average of 20-30 companies per fund. The average amount of investments in the growth fund will be from $50 million to $75 million, and in the case of raising a global fund - from $75 million to $100 million. Novice companies will be able to receive from $500 000 to $1 million.

An amazing golden age is coming in the European arena of startups, "said Richard Wong, Accel partner in an interview. - Now entrepreneurs often receive education not only in their country, but also outside, so they develop global thinking.

From 2019 to June 2021, 10 companies in which Accel invested became public, including Slack, Bumble, UiPath, CrowdStrike and Deliveroo. UiPath entered the exchange in April 2021 and is already estimated at more than $40 billion.^[1]

Investing in Infra.Market Construction Materials Marketplace

At the end of February 2021, Infra.Market raised $100 million in the Series C round, which was headed by Tiger Global. The startup plans to spend the funds raised to expand its technology offerings, develop new markets and promote initiatives such as the development of a brand and its own brand, direct sales and export. More details here.

Investing in RPA Market Leader UiPath

In early February 2021, UiPath announced the attraction of $750 million in investments as part of the Series F round, according to which the world's largest manufacturers of RPA solutions were valued at $35 billion, which is more than three times the estimate of six months ago. Previously, UiPath received a total of $1.2 billion from investors, including Accel, Alphabet Inc. "s CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins и Meritech Capital Partners (данные PitchBook). More details here.

2020: Market leader RPA UiPath raised $225 million and was valued at $10 billion

On July 13, 2020, UiPath announced the closure of the Series E investment round, following which the leader of the RPA solutions market raised $225 million and was valued at more than $10 billion. More details here.

Business in Russia

2014: General Catalyst and Accel Partners withdraw from the Островок.ру project at a loss of $25 million

In September 2014, co-founder of Островок.ру Sergey Fage gave a Siliconrus.com detailed comment on disagreements with Western investors General Catalyst and Accel Partners, which led to these funds writing off investments in the Russian startup:

We started communicating with General Catalyst just six months after the company was founded. Then they invested $100 thousand in our seed round [..]

Joel [partner of GC - Roem] invited me [..] and said: "Serge, this business will need more than $100 million. I have already reserved $50 million from my partners. All you have to do is grow up very quickly. " I agreed, and we aggressively began to hire people, before we figured out in detail the peculiarities of the business; began to buy advertising on a large scale, before they deeply understood the unit economy

For a whole year after the investment, GC did not ask us any KPIs, and, to be quite honest, he never even came to Russia to see what Ostrovok is. [..] Then, at some point a week before the next board of directors, requests from them for high-quality operational and financial reporting suddenly rained down. And at that moment we still had a startup: we had neither the right financial service, nor the right analytical system. [..]

The main problem was that even when the snags in the relationship began, they never came to our office and were not involved in what was happening in the company. They asked for presentations and reports, but at the same time I did not understand what they wanted, and they did not report it well enough. [..]

After that, they repeatedly reported that they would continue to invest money in the company. But at a critical moment, they suddenly announced that they would not invest anymore, despite all the promises. Other Ostrovka investors threatened to sue them, and as a result, they not only gave us their shares, but also paid an additional $1.5 million, just to get guarantees that we would not judge them. For us, the fact that they paid so much for not being judged is proof that they understood that they were wrong. [..]

The result was extremely successful for us - the Ostrovka team owns more than 50% of the company, despite the amount of attracted investments of more than $50 million [..] Of course, for General Catalyst and Accel, everything turned out to be much worse - I think it will be quite difficult for them to explain to their investors how you can invest more than $25 million in a company in Russia, having never arrived in the office of this company after the investments^[2]

Notes