One of the world’s most respected venture capital firm Accel partners has raised $2.52 billion for its new funding corpus, according to Techcrunch. This is said to be one of the largest pool of capital that Silicon Valley based VC firm has ever raised. Reports confirm that almost all of the funding corpus will go to fund three new funds: $525 million for its fourteenth early-stage fund, $1.5 billion for its fifth growth fund and $500 million for its second Leaders Fund.
Accel’s decision to raise fresh funding corpus has come closely on the heels of its yet another high profile exit. This exit is courtesy due to home sharing major Airbnb, which will soon acquire one of its successful portfolio companies HotelTonight. This acquisition valued at roughly $465 million is Airbnb’s costliest acquisition till date and makes for another feather in the cap for Accel.
The VC firm is also basking high on Slack’s upcoming IPO that is scheduled for later this year. It was one of the earliest institutional investors to invest in the work messaging platform, which today is valued around $7 bn. The IPO will give the Silicon Valley based investment firm yet another profitable exit.
Back In India, Accel partners found its biggest winner in Flipkart by making successively partial exits on profitable terms. It has also found possibly another winner in Bookmyshow, in which it owns a substantial stake. The online ticketing platform boasts good financial metrics and is soon likely to enter the unicorn club.
It is still not clear how much fund will Accel partners allocate to Indian markets. But it is safe to assume that Accel will be making some investment in the Indian markets.
The news of Accel raising $2.5 Bn funding corpus has come almost a day after reports hit the market that Naspers is eyeing $1 Billion Investment in India’s fintech space.
It looks like the dry funding spell that haunted the global startup industry for way too long is likely to subside in coming months.
