US-based venture firm Accel has raised $800m for its ninth Europe and Israel early-stage VC fund, in addition to another $2.7bn for three other funds.
Despite its American headquarters, the firm has been active in Europe for more than 25 years; Accel says it’s backed almost 250 European companies in total. The firm has invested in some of Europe’s biggest companies, including Romanian firm UiPath, UK fintech Monzo and French health platform Doctolib.
Recently, Accel has, like most multi-stage VCs, aimed to capitalise on the hottest trends in Europe: defence and AI.
It’s struck a number of big European deals including Swedish vibe coding startup Lovable, German AI agents startup N8n, British air defence maker Cambridge Aerospace and Swedish legaltech Legora.
Europe’s tech ecosystem “has evolved dramatically,” Harry Nelis, partner at Accel, said in a statement. “Today, that momentum is accelerating, with exceptional companies emerging across the region and increasingly building for global markets from the start.”
And AI is front and centre for Accel’s new fund: “AI is the most transformative technology we have ever seen, opening up new areas for innovation and compressing the time it takes to go from an idea to a scaled business,” Nelis added.
The new fund comes just two years after Accel raised $650m for its early-stage Europe and Israel fund.
