Accel India Venture Fund, which came out of Accel’s recent absorption of Indian VC firm Erasmic, as predicted has closed $60 million in a second round of funding new fund (the earlier round was fund had raised $12mn) from institutional investors from North America, Europe and Asia, according to Pluggdin.
Accel believes that seed and early stage markets continue to be under served in India, despite being one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, attracting less than 5% of the total venture capital funds. The firm stated there will not be a significant shift in the multi-sector investment strategy of Accel.
Accel’s investments have included Facebook and Walmart and the fund manages over $4 billion of assets across the US, Europe and Israel, as well as in China via a joint partnership between Accel and IDGVC China, which counts leading Chinese online video sharing site Tudou.com in its portfolio.
Accel India’s portfolio of companies includes DoveTail, HolidayIQ, Inbiopro, Kaati Zone, Kirusa, MuSigma, Myntra, Perfint, Sconce and Virident. The firm is managed by four partners, formerly those of Erasmic: Mahendran Balachandran, Gagan Kumar, Subrata Mitra and Prashanth Prakash.
Just goes to show there’s still capital out there that’s looking to find a home.
Broadband penetration in India is still at the very early stage and is a major hurdle for a person to venture into business leaving their boring jobs.
I don’t live in India, but visit every 2-3 years and stay for a month or more, and haven’t noticed any issue with broadband in New Delhi. Is there a specific region you’re thinking of?
Not many people have broadband connection in India and credit cards. I think these are two big hurdles for indian web ecosystem.
Indian companies sell 256 kbps Internet connection by calling it high speed and even broadband sometimes which is not just foolish but also illegal.
I haven’t heard of single company in Accel India’s portfolio while I don’t think that India has the infrastructure where Internet products could be nurtured. IT companies like Infosys and Wipro are just doing cheap IT labor work and expecting innovation from them is unfair. Zoho did a great job in spite of all the odds and the fact that it is not venture capital funded compels us to ask whether these VC firms should invest in products first or in getting the infrastructure ready.
I agree to Ninja, New Delhi is just a part of India and nothing in front of the whole mass. Look beyond the metros, you can see how people are still struggling for internet and rest of the things related to internet.
That is where the opportunity is. You do not need credit card bcoz people do not live in credit. The no of debit cards is much more than credit cards.
If internet does not work , mobile works in every corner of India and we have mobile based payments coming up.
@ real geek. You are right. Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Cognizant are cheap sweat shops. They will be in business as long as their US clients are in business, that is making profits. Now with Lehmann Brothers and ML and AIG gone, let us see what they do.
About Erasmic, they are assholes. Bunch of mangers of middle east companies they will keep their monies within their circle of friends. More assholes, more shoddy companies.
I had not heard of Accel India Venture or any of their companies. However, some other companies are doing very well – Zoho, Yatra, MakemyTrip, Naukri, Monster India, Google India, WiZiQ, authorStream, Rediff and Times of India. Of these Zoho, authorStream, Naukri and WiZiQ deserve special mention as these were started and executed by fresh enterpreneurs [or thats what I think]. Broadband might not be huge in India but given the absolute number, its still good. No wonder, Indians are amongst most active on YouTube.