After a record-breaking year for startup fundraising and at a time when rumours of a funding slowdown have begun, venture capital company Accel, which has invested in Flipkart, Swiggy, and Freshworks among others, has raised a $650 million fund, its sixth focusing on India. Acko, Blackbuck, BrowserStack, Chargebee, CultFit, FalconX, Infra.Market, Mensa, MindTickle, Moglix, Spinny, Swiggy, UrbanCompany, Vedantu, Zetwerk, and Zenoti are among the Indian startups in which the company has funded. Accel’s new fund will invest in Southeast Asian tech startups for the first time, following rival venture capital firms Sequoia and Lightspeed India, which have both ventured to Singapore and Indonesia in recent years. Accel’s new fund outperformed its previous $550 million funds, and it now manages over $2 billion in assets in India.
“2021 was a landmark year for India’s startup ecosystem, with over $40 billion invested and Indian as well as global IPOs. There have been some corrections since, but macro trends continue to be favourable,” said Anand Daniel, partner at Accel in an interview with Moneycontrol.
In 2021, 25 businesses from six Southeast Asian countries became unicorns, with a combined valuation of $55.4 billion, which is what caught the venture capital firm’s attention in Southeast Asia.
“Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem is thriving, and very interesting innovation is being done here. The ideas are unique to Southeast Asia, but the startups have global ambitions,” said Accel Partner, Prayank Swaroop.
One of Accel’s current issues is talent war afflicting startups, in which employees are leaving in droves because another company is ready to offer record amounts of money in the face of a skills scarcity.
Source: Moneycontrol, Asia Financial
