Accel closes $650 million for brand new Indian fund

Accel has raised $650 million for its eighth India fund because the American enterprise capital agency expands its funding technique within the South Asian market.

The brand new fund follows that of the corporate seventh Indian fund secured in March 2022. Accel – which has backed corporations together with e-commerce group Flipkart, meals supply platform Swiggy and software program group Freshworks – has established itself as India’s most profitable enterprise capital agency, serving as main institutional investor in its portfolio corporations.

The corporate wrote the primary institutional examine for Flipkart at a post-money valuation of $4 million – an funding whose worth has since soared, with Flipkart now price greater than $36 billion. Accomplice Anand Daniel led Swiggy’s funding spherical with a pre-money valuation of $2 million. Swiggy went public in November in what was the the biggest global tech IPO of 2024for a valuation of $11.3 billion.

By 2022, the valuation of the corporate’s most profitable startups collectively exceeded $100 billion.

The dynamics of Indian startups have modified quite a bit since Accel’s entry greater than a decade in the past. A key change has been the growing variety of public listings, responding to earlier criticisms. Greater than half a dozen Indian corporations backed by Accel, together with manufacturing platform Zetwerk and jeweler Bluestone, are expected to be released this yearTechCrunch beforehand reported.

“India is quickly changing into a promising hub for IPOs within the expertise sector, due to its robust capital markets and a thriving innovation ecosystem that continues to draw substantial investor curiosity,” Daniel (left in photograph above) advised TechCrunch in November.

Accel additionally stays one of many few Silicon Valley traders that has not spun off its Indian subsidiary, whereas rivals Sequoia and Matrix have severed ties with their respective Indian funds in recent times.

The corporate not too long ago deepened its focus on rural Indiabetting in opposition to the traditional knowledge that companies serving prosperous customers in small cities and villages can obtain lasting success.