Accel funding news – Private Equity Firm Accel Secures €602.7 Million in Funding

Accel has been operating in Europe for 24 years. The team's eighth early-stage fund will continue to build on the success of its prior funds by partnering with innovative business and consumer technology startups in Europe and Israel from the very beginning. The company helps its European and Israeli businesses grow and succeed globally by utilising its forty years of experience and global reach.

The European tech scene was still developing when Accel established its London office in 2000, so the city was not the obvious pick for an on-the-ground staff. While many doubted Europe's capacity to produce billion-dollar results, Accel thought that driven entrepreneurs might arise from anyplace.

Harry Nelis, Partner at Accel said, “Finding, building relationships and partnering with exceptional founders regardless of where they are located has always been in our DNA, Our belief almost 25 years ago that Europe and Israel’s entrepreneurs had the vision and ambition to create global, category-defining companies has ensured we’ve been fortunate enough to partner with many of the region’s iconic companies over several technology cycles. These companies have laid the foundations of the thriving landscape we see today, fuelling and inspiring the next wave of founders who can now see what’s possible. Our capillary networks cultivated over more than two decades ensure our team has a deep knowledge of the region. With Europe and Israel producing exceptional talent in areas such as AI, cybersecurity, fintech and the modern data stack, we’re looking forward to supporting the next generation of founders.”

Since then, the ecosystem has proceeded to pick up speed in Europe, witnessing the first unicorn (Skype) in 2005, decacorn (Supercell) in 2016, and cloud decacorn (UiPath) in 2020. The area is now a hub for talent, creativity, and ambition.

Several figures support this: With around $66 billion invested in 2023 compared to the US' $150 billion, the European and Israeli venture capital markets are now about half the size of the US industry (44%). (Dealroom). The $1.1 billion that was invested in Europe and Israel in 2003 (Dealroom) stands in sharp contrast to this.

The number of unicorns launched in Europe and Israel with VC backing has surpassed 360 (Dealroom). More than 1,400 new tech-enabled firms have been fueled by former unicorn employees in various geographies. Accel has now supported more than 200 businesses in more than 60 cities and 20 countries around Europe and Israel, including locations outside of the well-known IT hotspots like Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, and Serbia. Accel is the venture capital company that has made the most Series A investments in unicorns launched in Europe and Israel (Dealroom).

Read also - AimHi Earth funding news – Climate and Sustainability Training Provider AimHi Earth secures £1Million in Funding

Today, Europe is home to a plethora of success stories that serve as crucial role models for the upcoming generation of business owners. These include the following: Lithuania (Vinted), Norway (ForgeRock), Sweden (Avito, Spotify), Romania (UiPath), Israel (Cyera, Melio, Snyk), Germany (Celonis, Check24, Personio, Shift Technology, Sorare), Finland (Supercell), France (BlaBlaCar, Doctolib, Shift Technology, Sorare), and the UK (GoCardless, Monzo, Synthesia, Zepz).

About Accel

Accel is a multinational venture capital firm that supports outstanding teams worldwide from their founding through every stage of the development of a private company. Among the businesses Accel has supported over the past forty plus years include Atlassian, Bumble, CrowdStrike, Fiverr, Flipkart, Freshworks, Qualtrics, Scale, Segment, Slack, Spotify, Squarespace, Tenable, and UiPath. We support driven businesspeople in creating enduring, international brands.