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Accel Partners Closes Two New Funds

PALO ALTO, Calif. and LONDON, Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Accel Partners, a leading global venture capital firm, today announced the closing of two new funds, Accel Growth Fund at $480 million and Accel London III at $525 million. "We're very pleased with the support of our long-time investors in these unique economic times," said Jim Breyer, Partner at Accel, "and this milestone represents a continued validation of Accel's strategy to back the leading technology and media companies globally, from inception through growth."

Accel Growth Fund represents an important extension to the Accel Palo Alto team's twenty-five year old venture capital practice. The fund will focus on growth equity opportunities across a broad range of sectors, including: information technology, internet, digital media, mobile, networking, software, and services. As with Accel's early-stage efforts, Accel Growth Fund will play an active role in helping entrepreneurs and management teams build category-defining, global businesses.

"We are excited to expand Accel's early-stage efforts to now include investments in attractive, growing businesses across all stages of the private company life cycle," said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Partner at Accel.

The Accel Growth Fund will be managed by Andrew Braccia, Jim Breyer, Kevin Efrusy, Sameer Gandhi, Ping Li, Arthur Patterson, Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Jim Swartz, Peter Wagner, and Rich Wong, the same partners from Accel's most recent early-stage partnership, Accel X.

Accel London III will continue to invest in early stage and growth companies across Europe and Israel in Accel's historical sectors of expertise, including information technology, internet, software, media, mobile, and communications.

"We are proud to have earned the support of our industry's elite investors," said Kevin Comolli, Partner at Accel London. "The successful raising of Accel London III is a tribute to the quality of our team and portfolio, the huge market opportunity in the region and the distinctiveness of Accel's global approach."

"Accel London is uniquely positioned as the only leading venture firm operating in Europe with a Silicon Valley heritage and a global footprint," said Bruce Golden, Partner at Accel London. "Entrepreneurs who are truly focused on building defining, standalone public companies, are seeking investors with the expertise, global network of resources, patience and ambition to help them achieve their dream of creating the next market leader. Our mission is essentially to find and support this growing community of talented entrepreneurs in Europe and Israel."

Accel London has experienced tremendous success working in the European and Israeli early stage and growth environment, where it has been able to offer world-class entrepreneurs a combination of Silicon Valley best practice experience, and intimate knowledge of local investment requirements in Europe and Israel. A few of Accel London's current investments include Alfresco, Amobee, Check24, Gameforge, Kayak, Qliktech, Playfish, Super Derivatives, and Varonis.

Accel London is led by Partners Kevin Comolli, Sonali De Rycker, Bruce Golden, Harry Nelis, Simon Levene and Kaj-Erik Relander. The team offers a unique blend of experiences in investment, technology, and management.

About Accel Partners

Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of excellence and innovation in the venture capital business and is dedicated to partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class companies. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California; London, UK; and Bangalore, India; as well as in China via the IDG-Accel Partnership.

With over $6 billion under management, Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful category-defining companies including: Actuate, Alfresco, AMCC, Arrowpoint, Baidu, BBN, Brightcove, ComScore, Etsy, Facebook, Focus Media, Foundry Networks, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, JBoss, Kayak, Macromedia, metroPCS, Mu Sigma, Polycom/PictureTel, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback Networks, Riverbed, Sohu.com, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, XenSource, and Zimbra. For more information, visit the Accel Partners web site at http://www.accel.com.

SOURCE Accel Partners