Accel raises new $650 million fund for India, to fuel the next generation of category-defining startups

?         16 years since opening its India office, Accel has raised its eighth early-stage fund for India and Southeast Asia

?         Sectors in focus for this fund include AI, consumer, fintech and, manufacturing

?         Accel is the first institutional investor in 80% of its portfolio companies, supporting transformative ideas at earliest stages

Bengaluru – January 6^th, 2025 – Accel, a leading global venture capital firm, today announced that it has raised a $650 million early-stage fund dedicated to supporting bold founders in India and Southeast Asia. Accel’s latest fund, its eighth in India and SEA, will build on its commitment to partnering with early-stage founders to build disruptive, category-defining businesses that create meaningful impact. Accel leverages its over 40 years of experience and a global platform to provide the mentorship, networks, and support that founders need to lead in their domains.

With this fund, Accel will continue to partner with founders in AI, consumer brands, fintech, and manufacturing. The firm has identified sub-categories of focus within each of these themes:

?         Artificial Intelligence: Enterprise AI (Platforms that enable enterprise AI use cases using agentic technologies, LLMs and SLMs), Services as Software (AI startups taking advantage of India’s large IT services capabilities to provide better automation offerings), Vertical AI (Startups taking advantage of India’s large AI talent pool to integrate AI in vertical specific use cases).

?         Consumer: Bharat (Startups catering to the top 30% of households in India’s tier 2+ regions), India Native (Startups catering to the increasing demand by Indian consumers for higher service levels), and Aspirational Brands (Startups aiming to capitalize on the increasing discretionary spending of India’s consumption-first Gen Z demographic).

?         Fintech: Wealth Management (Startups catering to affluent consumers seeking personalized wealth advisory services through digital channels), Fintech Infrastructure (Startups bringing banks and fintechs together to enable best-in-class digital experiences for consumers and businesses), and Digital Distribution (Startups accelerating distribution of financial products by leveraging India’s digital public infrastructure)

?         Manufacturing: India To Global (Startups catering to global demand for diversified supply chains), India Native (Startups focused on high-quality production, and IP-driven, value-added manufacturing), and Industry 5.0 (Next-gen digital technologies transforming every factory floor leading to more efficient operations, higher-quality output, and sustainability)

Most median economic projections expect India to be a secular long-term growth story. As the fastest growing major economy globally, India’s GDP per capita is projected to rise by 60% from $2,700 in 2024 to $4,300 by 2029. India’s consumption story is expected to remain robust, and investments in public and digital infrastructure are expected to deliver sustained long-term economic growth.

While India’s public markets have grown 3x over the last 10 years, VC-backed companies represent less than 5 percent of the market capitalization. Public markets have started to embrace technology-led businesses, as demonstrated by two of its most recent listings, BlackBuck and Swiggy. Accel was the seed investor in both these companies.

“India is at an inflection point. Over the next decade, we are poised to add more to our GDP than we have in our economic history. The surface area of the opportunity for Indian founders to build and scale businesses that deliver large-scale impact is huge,” said Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel.  “With this latest fund, we are focused on AI, consumer, fintech, and manufacturing —areas that are reshaping industries and addressing the needs of a rapidly evolving market. Digital adoption is accelerating across urban and rural India, and founders are poised to solve real-world challenges and create solutions of global relevance. We believe the next wave of category-creating companies will come from those who can combine innovation with a deep understanding of customer needs.”

With over 16 years of operating in India and Southeast Asia, Accel has partnered with companies that have reimagined industries from e-commerce and SaaS to manufacturing. Accel has made substantial investments in companies across sectors such as Amagi, Acko, BlackBuck, BlueStone, BrowserStack, Cult.fit, Flipkart, Freshworks, Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk. Accel is the first institutional investor in 80% of its portfolio companies.

According to Shekhar Kirani, Partner at Accel, “India’s startup ecosystem is increasingly becoming the driving force behind the nation’s economic progress, with VC-backed companies surpassing $50 billion in public market capitalization. Indian founders have built resilient and enduring businesses which have been embraced by the public markets. As India’s GDP and public market cap grow, we expect large outcomes from disruptive businesses led by bold and visionary founders. As always, Accel strives to be the first partner to these exceptional entrepreneurs.”

In recent years, Accel has launched some key initiatives to make a founder’s journey as frictionless as possible and fuel the ecosystem’s growth. The firm’s open-source content and community platform, SeedToScale, democratizes company-building knowledge with actionable insights from successful founders, operators , and industry leaders. Accel’s early stage scaling program, Accel Atoms, now in its fourth iteration, has supported 36 startups to date that have collectively raised over $200 million. In the past two years alone, Accel invested in over 27 AI startups in India or by Indian-origin founders.