Accel Partners is a global venture and growth equity

Equity (finance)

In accounting and finance, equity is the residual claim or interest of the most junior class of investors in assets, after all liabilities are paid. If liability exceeds assets, negative equity exists...

 firm funding companies from inception through the growth stage.

The firm is based in Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto, California

Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

 with major offices in Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

, Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

.

Founded in 1983, Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful category-defining companies, such as Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, Kayak

Kayak.com

KAYAK is a technology company providing online travel tools through its global family of websites and mobile applications. Started by cofounders of Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity, KAYAK allows users to compare information from hundreds of other travel websites in one display when booking travel...

, Macromedia

Macromedia

Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...

, metroPCS

MetroPCS

MetroPCS Communications, Inc. , formerly known as General Wireless, Inc., is an American mobile phone service provider. It operates the fifth largest mobile telecommunications network in the US, with 8.9 million subscribers as of May 2011...

, and Walmart.com.

In addition to Accel's continued investments in early-stage startups from the Accel X early stage fund, Accel announced its $480 million growth fund in December of 2008. This 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.

In 2000, Accel entered into a joint-venture with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to form Accel-KKR

Accel-KKR

Accel-KKR is a technology-focused private equity firm focused on control investments in middle-market companies. The firm invests primarily in software and IT-enabled businesses...

 a technology-focused private equity investment firm focused on control investments of middle-market companies.

History

In April 2009, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, formerly Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

's President for Asia-Pacific & Latin American Operations, came on board as CEO-in-residence.

Founder of RealNetworks

RealNetworks

RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...

, Rob Glaser

Rob Glaser

Rob Glaser is the founder of RealNetworks which produces RealAudio, RealVideo, RealPlayer, and Helix, among other products and services...

 came on board as a partner in June 2010, focusing on digital media technology, social media, and mobile service investments.

Portfolio companies (past and present)

• Actuate
  Actuate
  Actuate Corporation is a San Mateo, California based Public Computer software company. Actuate is the founder and co-leader of the Eclipse BIRT open source project, a development environment for "presenting compelling data visualizations"...
  
  
• AdMob
  AdMob
  AdMob is a mobile advertising company founded by Omar Hamoui. The name AdMob is a portmanteau for "advertising on mobile". It was incorporated in 2006 and is based in San Mateo, California. In November 2009 it was acquired by Google for $750 million. The acquisition was completed on May 27, 2010....
  
  
• Alfresco
  Alfresco (software)
  Alfresco is a Free/Libre enterprise content management system for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. Alfresco comes in two flavours. Alfresco Community Edition is free software, LGPL licensed open source and open standards. Alfresco Enterprise Edition is commercially & proprietary...
  
  
• Altor Networks
  Altor Networks
  Altor Networks, Inc., a Juniper Networks Company, is the leading innovator and provider of security for virtual data centers and clouds. The company developed the world’s first firewall purpose-built for virtual networks, a software security "appliance" that runs in a virtualized environment and...
  
  
• AMCC
  Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
  Applied Micro Circuits Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company designing network and embedded Power Architecture , and server processor ARM , optical transport and storage solutions...
  
  
• Atlassian
  Atlassian
  Atlassian is a software company based in Sydney, Australia which makes business enterprise software, targeted at software developers. On 1 September 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011.- Products :...
  
  
• Baidu
  Baidu
  Baidu, Inc. , simply known as Baidu and incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a Chinese web services company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China....
  
  
• BBN Technologies
  BBN Technologies
  BBN Technologies is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
  
  
• Braintree
  Braintree (company)
  Braintree helps online businesses process credit card payments by providing a merchant account, payment gateway, recurring billing and credit card storage. Braintree is a Level 1 PCI-DSS compliant service provider.-History:...
  
  
• Brightcove
  Brightcove
  Brightcove is a Cambridge, MA based company that produces an Online Video Platform .- History :Brightcove was founded in 2004 by Jeremy Allaire, who now serves as CEO. In March 2006, Brightcove acquired Seattle-based Metastories, makers of StoryMaker, a publishing tool for video, audio, images, and...
  
  
• ComScore
  ComScore
  comScore is a Internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet's largest businesses. comScore tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior....
  
  
• Etsy
  Etsy
  Etsy is an e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items as well as art and craft supplies. These items cover a wide range including art, photography, clothing, jewelry, edibles, bath & beauty products, quilts, knick-knacks and toys. Many individuals also sell craft supplies like beads,...
  
  
• Facebook
  Facebook
  Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
  
  
• Focus Media
  Focus Media
  Focus Media is an organization originally based out of Detroit, Michigan which produces original music, artwork, design, and other media. The organization was founded in 2002 by Doc Matthews in an effort to release his own works and the works of his friends...
  
  
• Foundry Networks
  Foundry Networks
  Foundry Networks, Inc. was a networking hardware vendor selling high-end Ethernet switches and routers. The company was founded in 1996 by Bobby R. Johnson, Jr. and was headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA...
  
  
• Gameforge
  Gameforge
  Gameforge is a German video game developer and publisher, specialising in browser-based multiplayer games. The company was established in Karlsruhe, Germany in December 2003 by Klaas Kersting and Alexander Roesner....
  
  
• Gigle Networks
  Gigle Networks
  Gigle Networks was a provider of high performance system-on-a-chip semiconductor devices and intelligent switching technology for home network, IPTV, consumer electronics and smart grid applications. The company is based in Barcelona, Spain, Edinburgh, UK, and Redwood City, California.Gigle was a...
  
  
• Glam Media
  Glam Media
  Glam Media, Inc. is a privately held vertical media company with more than lifestyle websites and blogs. Glam Media is best known for Glam.com, a website targeted at women...
  
  
• Infinera
  Infinera
  Infinera Corporation is a manufacturer of long-haul WDM optical transmission equipment for the service provider market.Infinera claims to have changed the world of optical telecommunications with its “Digital...
  
  
• Interwoven
  Interwoven
  Interwoven is a line of Content Management Systems and related products. Previously a stand-alone company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA and founded in 1995, it was acquired on March 17, 2009 by Autonomy...
  
  
• JBoss
  JBoss
  JBoss Application Server is an open-source Java EE-based application server. An important distinction for this class of software is that it not only implements a server that runs on Java, but it actually implements the Java EE part of Java...
  
  
• Kayak
  Kayak.com
  KAYAK is a technology company providing online travel tools through its global family of websites and mobile applications. Started by cofounders of Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity, KAYAK allows users to compare information from hundreds of other travel websites in one display when booking travel...
  
  
• Knewton
  Knewton
  Knewton is an adaptive learning company that has developed a platform to personalize educational content. The Knewton platform allows schools, publishers, and developers to provide adaptive learning for any student. Knewton recently announced a partnership with Pearson Education to power the...
  
  
• Macromedia
  Macromedia
  Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...
  
  
• metroPCS
  MetroPCS
  MetroPCS Communications, Inc. , formerly known as General Wireless, Inc., is an American mobile phone service provider. It operates the fifth largest mobile telecommunications network in the US, with 8.9 million subscribers as of May 2011...
  
  
• NetVMG
• Nimbula
  Nimbula
  Nimbula is a startup backed by Sequoia Capital and Accel Partners based out of Mountain View. The company was founded by Chris Pinkham and Willem Van Biljon who led the team that created Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud . Nimbula develops cloud orchestration software for the implementation of public...
  
  
• Polycom/PictureTel
  Polycom
  Polycom is a multinational corporation with approximately 3,200 employees worldwide and an annual revenue of approximately $1.2 billion in 2010. The company manufactures and sells telepresence and voice communications solutions.-Company History 1990:...
  
  
• Portal Software
  Portal Software
  Portal Software was founded in 1985 as Portal Information Network, one of the first ISPs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded by John Little. The company offered its own interface through modem access that featured Internet email. Towards the end of the 1980s, the company offered...
  
  
• QlikTech
  Qliktech
  QlikTech is a business intelligence software company based in Radnor, Pennsylvania. QlikTech is the provider of QlikView, a business intelligence solution that delivers enterprise-class analytics and search. Its in-memory associative search technology makes calculations in real-time, enabling...
  
  
• Real Networks
• Redback Networks
  Redback Networks
  Redback Networks was a telecommunications equipment company, specializing in hardware and software used by ISPs to manage broadband services. In December 2006, Ericsson and Redback announced they had signed a definitive agreement under which Ericsson would acquire Redback...
  
  
• Riverbed Technology
  Riverbed Technology
  Riverbed Technology is a technology company that specializes in improving the performance of networks and networked applications. It was founded May 23, 2002 by Jerry Kennelly and Steve McCanne in San Francisco, California where its world headquarters remains...
  
  
• SB Nation
  SB Nation
  SB Nation is a sports network owned and operated by Vox Media with more than 300 separate web sites maintained primarily by part-time contract writers. They put together posts, facilitate dialogue and interact with commenters. At a kickoff event in February 2009, there were about 185 blogs...
  
  
• Sohu.com
• UUNet
  UUNET
  UUNET founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the nine Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was the first commercial Internet service provider...
  
  
• Veritas
  Veritas
  In Roman mythology, Veritas, meaning truth, was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn and the mother of Virtue. It was believed that she hid in the bottom of a holy well because she was so elusive. Her image is shown as a young virgin dressed in white...
  
  
• Walmart.com
• Webroot
• XenSource
• Zimbra
  Zimbra
  Zimbra Collaboration Suite is a groupware product created by Zimbra, Inc., located in Palo Alto, California, USA. The company was purchased by Yahoo! in September 2007, and subsequently purchased by VMware on Tuesday, January 12, 2010. The software consists of both client and server components...
  
  
• Nimble Storage

External links

• Accel Partners (company website)
• Crunchbase Profile