2023 is particularly momentous to Accel as we complete 40 years as a global fund and 15 years in India. As we celebrate this milestone, we hope to share insights from the firm’s shared history with you, in this riveting two-part podcast series. We begin with a look at the past, and how startups and investors evolved over the years; moving on to investing today, and why many call 2023 the year of reset in VC. Finally, we look to the future, with timeless lessons the next generation of...

2023 is particularly momentous to Accel as we complete 40 years as a global fund and 15 years in India. As we celebrate this milestone, we hope to share insights from the firm’s shared history with you, in this riveting two-part podcast series. We begin with a look at the past, and how startups and investors evolved over the years; moving on to investing today, and why many call 2023 the year of reset in VC. Finally, we look to the future, with timeless lessons the next generation of...

Know what is harder than pivoting when the going gets tough? Pivoting when the going is good. On the surface, most metrics were scaling efficiently for Urban Company (previously UrbanClap) at the end of 2015. The tech company mainly generated leads for at-home service providers. But founders Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, Raghav Chandra recognized that improving the experience of suppliers and customers would require deeper involvement. They needed to build a full stack marketplace with...

At their core, marketplaces are in the business of efficiency. Deeply optimized supply was the need of the hour in the world of construction, where access to materials was fragmented and unreliable. Souvik Sengupta of Infra.Market and Prashanth Prakash of Accel talk about transforming the manner in which real estate companies buy for their projects. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From...

What does it take to build a timeless marketplace? Time. Long-lasting marketplaces have little to do with restless hustling, and a lot to do with clear research and balancing gut calls with data calls. You can trust that bit of wisdom because it comes from Mukesh Bansal who knows the ups and downs of entrepreneurship in India more intimately than most. As founder of Myntra, head of commerce and advertising at Flipkart, and now as founder-CEO at Cult.fit, the relentless entrepreneur has...

When Niraj Singh started up Spinny, the used-car market in India was already crowded with cash-rich competitors. More and more Indian buyers were leaning towards buying pre-owned cars because of the better value they offered but the landscape was still full of potholes and barriers. There were few trusted intermediaries, and no convenient way for buyers to go through the sea of options or for sellers to find the right price. That is where Spinny came in. Niraj Singh founded the full-stack...

BlackBuck may be named after one of the fastest-running native Indian animals but the six-year-old company will tell you that mastering B2B logistics is slow and steady work. The company was founded in 2015 by Rajesh Yabaji, Ramasubramanian B, and Chanakya Hridaya, who came from an enterprise background where they had closely observed the problems of the trucking sector. But there was no easy solution. To make an impact in freight logistics, you had to be pan-India from the get-go....

Cutting out the intermediary helps many industries. Not so in manufacturing. It needed a middle layer. Suppliers routinely failed to deliver on time, and customers failed to pay on time. To improve trust and speed, Amrit Acharya and Srinath Ramakkrushnan introduced Zetwerk as a B2B marketplace for manufacturing in 2018. Zetwerk began as a hub for steel fabrication. Within six months, its business went from a topline of ₹1 crore a month to ₹10 crore a month. Since then, the company has...

Give someone a fish, you feed them for a day. Give someone reliable access to seafood in a supply-deprived industry, you go on to create a successful B2B marketplace for fish. Take it from Utham Gowda, the founder of Captain Fresh, an investment banker-turned-fisherman, so to speak. Three years after its birth in 2019, the company has raised $126.5 million in funding at a $500 million valuation. In an industry where the average level of spoilage is 20-30%, Captain Fresh manages to minimize...

Building a startup eventually boils down to two questions: Who are you building for? Do they like your product? In this conversation, Nandan Reddy and Phani Kishan from Swiggy and Accel's Anand Daniel share lessons learned while building and scaling their startup in a crowded market.

Building a marketplace isn’t just about having the most capital, it is about finding harmony. Harmony between supply, demand, market and your team. That’s the ultimate PMF. In this chat, Raghunandan G of TaxiForSure and Anand Daniel of Accel, dive deep into the process of building TFS. *** Over the past decade and a half, new-age marketplaces in India have transformed how people buy and sell products and services. From Flipkart to Swiggy, Urban Company, and Zetwerk, each has reimagined "the...

Anand Daniel speaks to Varun Dua about his journey building an insurance company, how he approaches building a brand in an industry with established players, and what he sees in the future. They're joined by Abhinav Chaturvedi and Subrata Mitra, investors at Accel who have had a ringside view of Acko and Coverfox.

Anand Daniel speaks to Vivekananda Hallekere, Co-founder and CEO of Bounce about the new, rapidly unfolding era of mobility. In this conversation, Vivek talks about his journey, the various phases of Bounce, EV trends in India and abroad, the inevitability of EV adoption and the need for regulatory support.

Anand Daniel speaks to Vinay Bagri, Co-founder and CEO of Niyo, about the new era of neo-banks. In this conversation, Vinay talks about how Niyo came into being, shares some of his reflections on the ongoing changes in the banking ecosystem, draws parallels from other fintech segments and discusses the need for regulatory support.

Anand Daniel - Partner at Accel and Prayank Swaroop - Partner at Accel, speaks to Sachin Agrawal, CEO - Bizongo about their First 500 days.

Anand Daniel - Partner at Accel and Subrata Mitra - Partner at Accel, speaks to Ananth Narayanan, Founder and CEO - Mensa Brands, about his approach to identifying brands with growth potential, his learnings from Myntra and Medlife, and achieving unicorn status in Mensa’s first six months.

Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel talks to Abhishek Nayak, founder and CEO of Appsmith about the Future of Open Source and Building Open Source Projects

Pratik Agarwal, Principal at Accel speaks to Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO of FalconX about the Future of Crypto, FalconX's rapid growth and what it means.

Manasi Shah, Vice-President at Accel speaks to Bob Meese, the Chief Business Officer of Duolingo about the Future of Edtech - Learnings from the Duolingo journey

Rachit Parekh, Vice President at Accel speaks to Nitin Gupta, CEO of Uni about the Future of Credit Cards - Innovation and opportunities in Indian Fintech

Darpan S, CEO of MyGlamm speaks to Anand Daniel about the 'Future of BPC' in India

Baskar Subramanian, founder and CEO of Amagi speaks with Anand Daniel about his 'GRIT story'

Aprameya is no stranger to the entrepreneurial journey. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Koo, a microblogging platform catering to the Indian vernacular. Koo was born as an offshoot of Vokal, a vernacular question and answer platform. Within one year, it amassed over a million users and became a force of its own. Before this, he was at the helm of TaxiForSure, leading it to a successful acquisition by Ola Cabs back in 2015. I was part of this journey, and Aprameya’s clarity and grit has been...