Accel Plans To Raise $2B In New Funds This Year

Leading VC firm Accel Partners is trying to raise four new funds with a value of $2 billion this year, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Two of the funds will focus on growth companies and early-stage ventures, and two on China.

Accel has big investments in Facebook and Groupon, both of which are expected to have huge IPOs within the next 18 months, and has had some big sales of portfolio companies, including AdMob to Google for $750 million in 2009 and Diapers.com to Amazon for $545 million last December.

This track record should give Accel a shot at raising the huge new funds at a time when many big institutional investors are pulling back from Internet investments.

Join the conversation about this story »

Accel Plans To Raise $2B In New Funds This Year

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/utD6G48bglw/accel-plans-to-raise-2b-in-new-funds-this-year-2011-2

Valley VC Firm Accel Partners Opening A New York Office

Accel Partners, the big Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is opening a New York office, the latest sign of West Coast VC interest in the New York tech scene.

Accel has already made several NYC-area investments, so it makes sense to have a satellite office here. Its portfolio includes New York area companies like Diapers.com (recently acquired by Amazon), Etsy, Birchbox, Glam, Squarespace, and Venmo.

Though, for now, this seems more for the convenience of its partners than to add much -- more than its money, via investments -- to the New York tech scene.

Accel VC Rich Wong tells us that the office won't have any permanent staffers at first, but that there is an Accel partner in New York almost every week or two as it is. Accel's Jim Breyer, Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, and Sameer Gandhi are leading the effort. (Breyer also has a home in New York.)

We'll see if Accel eventually hires partners here, gets deeply involved in the community, etc. This stuff takes time, so we'll see.

Wong says Accel will likely increase its investment pace in the New York area, across a range of deal sizes, from seed stage to growth equity.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The 25 Hush-Hush New York Startups You Need To Know About
• The Worst-Kept Secret In New York Tech
• Polaris Opening Dogpatch Labs 'Frat House For Geeks' In New York

Valley VC Firm Accel Partners Opening A New York Office

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/R2ZYBXIz9EY/valley-vc-firm-accel-partners-opening-a-new-york-office-2011-1

Yardsellr Scores $5 Million Series A From Accel To Become The eBay Of Facebook

Bringing social commerce to Facebook is a big opportunity attracting a lot of capital these days. Social swap meet Yardsellr just raised a $5 million series A financing, led by Accel Partners. Harrison Metal Capital, which previously put up $750,000 in seed funding, also participated. Yardsellr is an eBay for Facebook, except without the auctions. In fact, the company was founded by three former eBay executives, CEO Daniel Leffel (a former manager at eBay), VP of Marketing Jed Clevenger (who used to run the paid search team at eBay), and VP of Community Rachel Makool (who used to run the community team at eBay). Investor Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal is also a former SVP of eBay.com. Yardsellr is currently run out of the Harrison Metal office in Palo Alto.

Yardsellr Scores $5 Million Series A From Accel To Become The eBay Of Facebook

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/UOj0hNjxzb0/