Venture capital firm Accel has raised a $650 million fund to invest in early-stage companies in Europe and Israel with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity.
Accel will invest in 25 to 30 new companies.
The new fund will be Accel’s eighth since opening its London office in 2000. Accel has so far backed more than 200 companies across 20 countries in the region and still has investments in more than 100 companies.
“It takes about three years to invest the fund and then the life of a fund is typically around 12 years,” Harry Nelis, a partner at Accel, told Reuters.
Accel, known for early investments in companies such as Meta and Dropbox, had also invested in major European companies such as Deliveroo, Spotify and Supercell.
The European and Israeli VC market has been growing fast, with investments of $66 billion in 2023 compared to $150 billion in the United States, according to data from Dealroom. In comparison, the investments amounted to just $1.1 billion in 2003 versus $17 billion in the U.S.
“AI is going to be a big platform shift that will probably run for the next 10 years and we expect to place a good number of bets in AI companies,” Harry Nelis said.
