Clements: Accel invested in CrowdStrike at $160M valuation with $1M ARR
Miles Clements · "Cursor is Dead" is Total BS: Here is Why | Miles Clements · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 9, 2026 · at 49:00
Miles Clements is a Partner at Accel discussing Accel's early investment history in CrowdStrike and how holding long-term yielded a multi-billion dollar position.
0:00 / 0:21exact quote · 21.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The example I would point to is, you know, CrowdStrike. Samir Gandhi and John Locke intersected CrowdStrike when it was, you know, there was like a million dollars of software revenue and there was a nine million dollar consulting business, and like, that was the company, and I think they invested in, ah, 2011 at one 60 post.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Miles Clements
Clements: VCs that never lose deal fights aren't competing hard enough
“I think if you're not putting yourself out there in losing, sometimes you're not chasing competitive enough things.”
Clements: 95% of developers switch AI models daily
“And one of the things that we're learning is like 50% of developers switch model families on a daily basis and 95% of developers switch models on a daily basis.”
Clements: Cursor will build specialized coding models for enterprise users
“Cursor is going to build specialized coding models that are going to serve specialized coding tasks, especially for a lot of enterprise users.”
Clements: Accel's initial Cursor investment was priced at 4-5x year-end ARR
“Actually, this company is growing so quickly that on a multiples basis, you know, our first investment was at like four times, five times year-end ARR.”
Clements: VCs get hammered sitting in the middle of consensus
“I think you can actually be successful in this market investing in consensus. And I think you can actually do really well investing in like non-consensus. I think you get hammered sitting in the middle.”
Clements: Accel lost ServiceTitan over rigid valuation caps before $9B valuation
“We had fallen in love with our envy. We were chasing this round. It was going to happen in the two 50 or three hundred million dollar range. And, you know, we had these rigid rules about like, you definitely can't pay more than six times, six to eight times fo…”