Scaleup programmes
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Accel [2024]
Finance and Risk Capital
Impact for scaleups
41
UK companies backed
24%
Follow-on investments
29%
Investments outside of London
37
Growth-stage investments
Key sectors
Describing itself as a “global partnership to work with the most innovative companies,” Accel is a prominent early and growth-stage venture capital firm, investing in technology-led businesses across the US, Europe, and India. With established offices in San Francisco, London, and Bangalore, the firm provides active hands-on support to its portfolio—helping companies to hire senior leaders, expand into new markets, and provide introductions to new customers.
Between 2017 and June 2024, the fund participated in 78 fundraisings for 46 UK-based companies. Their average turnover was £172m with 308 employees.
Accel’s recent UK investments include Lottie, an online marketplace for elderly care services, where it led a £17 million Series A round in 2024 to support the growth of the company’s technology platform and team. The firm also participated in a $52 million funding round for Carwow, the online vehicle marketplace, to help scale its operations across the UK, Germany, and Spain.
Accel has also invested in high-growth B2B ventures such as Omnea, an AI-powered procurement and risk management platform, leading a $20 million Series A round in October 2024 to drive product development and international expansion. These investments underline Accel’s continued focus on supporting UK scaleups in priority sectors including digital marketplaces, enterprise software, and AI-enabled solutions.
In May 2024, Accel closed its eighth early-stage fund for Europe and Israel, securing $650 million to invest in up to 30 companies over the next three years. The fund will back businesses in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and infrastructure—further strengthening Accel’s presence in the European scaleup ecosystem. The firm also runs initiatives to foster peer learning—such as its global SaaStock event—and publishes its annual Euroscape report, which ranks the top 100 SaaS companies in Europe and Israel. The 2023 edition, Generation AI, highlighted Europe’s strength in AI research and a renewed focus on capital-efficient cloud-based growth models.
