Accel Partners has just this morning announced another hefty fund of $475 million. It’s the company’s fourth fund for Accel London and will be used for investments across a wide range of technologies — consumer Internet, big data, cloud, SaaS and mobile among them – and primarily companies in Europe and Israel, at all stages of investment but focusing mainly on its “sweet spot” of Series A. → Read More
Editor’s note: Derek Andersen is the founder of Startup Grind, a 35-city event series hosted in 15-countries that educates, inspires, and connects entrepreneurs. He also founded Commonred and is ex-Electronic Arts.
I met Ryan Smith about nine years ago in a college apartment in Provo Utah. We were both attending school, and after asking him what he was working on he replied, “I’m building… → Read More
Back in May, we shared the unique story of Lynda.com, the veteran, video-based education platform, and how it was able to generate $70 million in revenue in 2011 without taking a penny from outside investors. Since then, it’s continued chugging along, growing revenue to $100 million in 2012.
Founded in 1995 by husband-and-wife team Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman, in the Facebook and Instagram… → Read More
Accel investment partner Adam Valkin is joining General Catalyst Partners, as a General Partner in its Boston office. Valkin will focus on sourcing early stage investments and working with existing companies in General Catalyst’s portfolio. → Read More
Over the last few years, the enterprise has been been quick to adopt cloud computing, but by and large, the cloud has found the most penetration in areas of the enterprise that aren’t mission critical. Yet, as Forbes wrote today, this has begun to change of late as companies that are handicapped by decades-old, legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system increasingly move from on-premise… → Read More
Avito.ru, the biggest online classified ads site in Russia, has secured a fresh $75 million round of funding from Accel Partners’ London office. Founded in 2008, Avito has so far landed $101 million from Accel, Baring Vostok Private Equity, Kinnevik, and Northzone. The capital will be used for expansion and hiring.
Russia’s classifieds ads business has plenty of room for growth because – guess… → Read More
Big corporations have been riddled by security attacks over the past year, and hackers seem to be growing even bolder and more resolute. As a result, market research firm The Radicati Group said that it expects the corporate web security market to grow to $2.5 billion over the next four years. It’s in this climate that a young, stealth startup is trying to put companies back on the offensive, and… → Read More
In this economic climate, many small businesses do not qualify for loans based on the standards imposed by banks and financial institutions. For fledgling businesses, the establishment doesn’t have enough cash flow, revenue or credit to qualify for a loan. Many times, entrepreneurs have to put up personal assets as collateral for loans, which can be problematic and risky. The fact is working… → Read More
< There's been quite a lot of talk recently about the state of the European venture capital industry. European VCs somehow often get labeled as timid, risk averse…or even bad. Atlas Venture’s Fred Destin nicely outlined his view and hinted at the need for a bit of “revolution” – and the fact that some of the European VCs simply do not have the same DNA as the entrepreneur-turned-investor crowd in the US. That being said, Europe is not void of American-style investors – like the European branch of Accel Partners.
While the Accel team in… → Read More
Although many investors are spinning for the chance to invest in Turntable.fm, the hot music startup has not yet picked a dance partner, despite reports to the contrary. Business Insider claims that Turntable has raised $7.5 million at a $37.5 million valuation and “that term sheets were indeed signed yesterday.” But reached a few hours ago as he was boarding a plane, co-founder and chairman… → Read More
Is there a future for social browser startup RockMelt? Despite attracting only a few hundred thousand active users since its much-hyped launch, the company filled with ex-Netscape rockstars and backed by former Netscape founder Marc Andreessen just managed to raise another $30 million in a B round led by Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures, with Andreessen Horowitz, Ron Conway, Bill Campbell and… → Read More
You know what’s awful about every politician blindly saying he or she “supports our troops”? It’s usually a hollow sentiment uttered just to get applause.
You know what’s great about every politician blindly saying he or she “supports our troops”? When presented with something that demonstrably helps the troops, there’s zero political capital in obstructing it.
And hence, Gunnar Counselman may… → Read More
Editor’s Note: This is part two in an in-depth series exploring the ramifications of the explosion of late stage capital being raised by the Valley’s elite venture firms. For part one, go here.
In the mid-2000s when nearly every top venture capital firm was expanding to India and China, Benchmark Capital did not share its peers’ worldly ambitions. In fact, while the firm retained its Israel fund… → Read More
In Silicon Valley it’s not just who you invest in that matters– it’s also when you invest in them. The earlier the investment, the riskier the bet. But the more jawdropping the returns if the company hits it big. It’s so lopsided, that typically just 5% of those unsure early bets create some 95% of the entire venture industry’s returns. Miss one of them, and it haunts you for years. Snag it, and… → Read More
Earlier today, we posted an interview with Matt Heist, CEO of HighGear Media, an auto blog that hit four million uniques last month. That may not sound too jaw-dropping but gearheads are a surprisingly neglected online audience, and HighGear has proven a haven for car enthusiasts and the journalists that love to write for them.
Two of the Valley’s top venture funds certainly believe HighGear has… → Read More
A while ago I wrote about how neglected the sports vertical was online, given the largest properties are mostly the same portals or online versions of old media sites that were launched in the late 1990s. It turns out another macho-content vertical is even more neglected– cars.
Quietly, a company called HighGear Media is building a pretty impressive business. It’s raised $12 million from top… → Read More
Recommendation engine StumbleUpon has just announced a $17 million Series B round of funding, from Accel Partners, August Capital, DAG Ventures, First Round Capital and Sherpalo Ventures.
StumbleUpon has had an interesting history, being snatched up by eBay in 2007 and then bought back by its founders for a rumored $29 million plus in 2009. Currently the service has 14 million users and now… → Read More
In what is the first but certainly not the last time we’ll hear of Silicon Valley venture capitalists opening up an office in New York, storied venture firm and Facebook/Groupon backer Accel Partners has opened a New York outpost at 11th and Broadway. This will be the second US location for Accel, which has offices in Bangalore, Beijing, London, New Delhi and Shanghai.
East Coast vs. West Coast… → Read More
The Arlington, Va. clean tech startup, OPower, closed a $50 million series C investment led by Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers (KPCB) and joined by the company’s earlier investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA) the firms announced Monday.
OPower’s software-as-a-service helps electric and gas utilities understand who their residential energy consumers are, and how they… → Read More
Have you ever walked into your neighborhood Sephora only to feel utterly inundated by a sea of colorful beauty products? There are literally thousands of slots filled with bronzers, eye palettes, brushes, moisturizers, foundations, creams, creating a dizzying kaleidoscope of shades and scents.
As someone who doesn’t pour over fashion magazines for the latest product and make-up tips, it’s simply… → Read More
“So ResearchGATE is Facebook for Scientists?” I asked ex-Facebook exec, current Benchmark Capital general partner and new ResearchGATE investor Matt Cohler. “I bristle at that characterization,” he responded telling me that doesn’t adequately describe the company.
Either way he’s invested in the Berlin based startup, along with Accel Partners, Simon Levene, Michael Birch, Joachim Schoss, Martin… → Read More
When founder Anthony Casalena first started Squarespace in 2003, he had one investment: $20,000 from his dad. At the time, it was just enough money to get a few servers for his web publishing startup.
Fast forward to 2010, Squarespace has just raised $38.5 million— representing its first round of outside capital. The round, which was announced late Tuesday, is led by Index Ventures and Accel… → Read More
Private online shopping clubs are springing up like mushrooms all around the world in light of the successes companies like Vente Privée has been seeing, and venture capital firms are increasingly starting to invest in companies who are bringing the concept to specific niches or introducing the private online sales model to interesting geographical markets.
In the latter category falls Russian … → Read More
Accel Partners has poured $4.5 million into Causata, a San Francisco-based software startup that provides tools companies can use to optimize customer experience and business results.
The Series A round actually closed back in April this year, but the name of the investor has only now been made public through a regulatory filing, reports peHUB. Judging by messages posted this morning on the… → Read More
Accel India Venture Fund, which came out of Accel’s recent absorption of Indian VC firm Erasmic, as predicted has closed $60 million in a second round of funding new fund (the earlier round was fund had raised $12mn), according to Pluggdin.
Accel believes that seed and early stage markets continue to be under served in India, attracting less than 5% of the total venture capital funds. The firm… → Read More
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