The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 134 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
VCs should spend 90% of their time pursuing high-bar distant deals
“Trying to have that high bar, that high standard is where you should spend 90% of your time, even if that company you identify as a long ways away from where you work or where you live.”
11 of 13 Pear Launchpad Companies Raised Top 2016 Seed Rounds
“So, you know, last year we had about 13 companies 11 of them ended up raising a seed round from great people. Accel, first round, Index, just really, really top name people. And the other two went back to school.”
Smith: Accel's Ryan Sweeney has set an unprecedented standard in late-stage investing
“Ryan Sweeney's in Excel, they put on a clinic in late stage investing that I don't think anyone in tech has ever seen before.”
Accel's 2015 portfolio held an average 16 months of cash runway
“At the end of last year, the vast, vast, vast majority of companies had more than 12 months of cash. I think of the 105 active portfolio companies something in the high nineties had more than 12 months of cash with the average being closer to 16.”
Accel typically knows founders for up to 12 months before investing
“I think overall, we probably know our founders for, you know, upwards of 12 months sometimes before we before we make an investment.”
Crossing the Chasm has everything needed to scale enterprise software
“More, I think, you know, I think there's everything you ever need to learn about scaling an enterprise software company is in that book.”
Destin: Regretful VC investments correlate with rushed founder diligence
“The investments that I regret making Are systematically the ones where I didn't spend enough time getting to know the founders. So there's an almost perfect correlation with shit where I wish I hadn't invested, and the fact that I didn't have time to build a r…”
Kanji: Accel and Index are the best venture firms in Europe
“Axel's a great firm. I mean, it's probably one of the best in Europe, if not the best, alongside of Index.”
Treskow: Accel avoids cleantech and biotech due to lack of expertise
“So, so we do not look, for example, at cleantech or biotech because, you know, I know nothing about that space.”
Soltero: Hyperic bootstrapped two years before Accel/Benchmark funding and $420M exit
“We ended up bootstrapping Hyperic actually for two years before we raised money ultimately from Excel and Benchmark who were great investors. And helped us take this thing to you know, ultimately a four hundred and twenty million dollar acquisition by VMware, …”
Clements: Public trillion-dollar market cap companies grew from zero to twelve
“A decade ago, there were zero companies worth a trillion dollars. Five years later, there were six public companies worth a trillion dollars. Today, there's a dozen companies worth a trillion dollars in the public market.”
Clark: Accel Has Successfully Managed Generational Leadership Transitions
“I look at someone like Excel who, you know, is probably on the third or fourth generation now of leaders within that firm. I think they'd probably admit that, that, you know, they didn't get everything perfect, but I think they've handled most of those transit…”
Wagner still holds much of his Facebook stock from Accel days
“I still hold a lot of our Facebook investment, you know, back from you know, the Excel days.”
De Rycker: Accel's early hiring mistakes stemmed from ignoring emotional characteristics
“When we made mistakes, we were, what we were getting wrong was kind of the emotional characteristics, and really the who As opposed to the how or the what.”
De Rycker: Accel reviews all missed investment deals in team post-mortems
“We put all the companies down that we got wrong, and we really figure out why we got it wrong as a group, and we try to learn from each other's mistakes.”
Patterson: Accel partners prepared personal checks to reach $100M Fund III
“In the end, actually, we were a little bit short, and we were going to write checks ourselves to bring it over a hundred.”
Swartz: Accel's 1989 Fund III was the firm's most challenging raise
“Oh, it's very clear. It was the third fund, which we raised in 1989 because I mean, I could write a book on the tactics to get that damn thing done. It took us a year, maybe a little more.”
Swartz: Accel co-founders began relinquishing firm equity around 2000
“So we started giving up our ownership in the firm, you know, beginning around 2000 or so late nineties, early 2000 started scaling back, which allowed others to grow.”
Swartz: Software and communications were under 15% of 1980s VC
“You go back in that era, those two sectors were maybe 10 to 15% of the total investing that was going on at the”
Deliveroo raised over $1.7 billion prior to its 2021 IPO
“Prior to their IPO earlier this year, Will raised over 1.7 billion dollars for the company from some of the best in the business, including Excel, Index, General Catalyst, Green Oaks and more.”
Lavingia: Accel Invested $400K in Gumroad's $1.1M Seed Round
“Our pre-seed round, or our seed round back then it was called, was 1.1 million. Excel put 400 K into that.”
Blomfield: Monzo closed 2018 funding round preemptively without full process
“General Catalyst were really keen to do it preemptively. So we didn't go through an enormously drawn out fundraising process. They sort of came in with an offer that we thought was really attractive, and it saved us a time of doing a full fundraising process. …”
Accel offered a high-end valuation term sheet to win the Atlassian deal
“So, a company like Atlassian, I think we were not on the low end of how we put in our term sheet in terms of the valuation that we ascribed to Atlassian at the time.”
Accel sourced Qualtrics early by building relationships in Salt Lake City
“Qualtrics, is a good example of that. Hiding in Salt Lake, you didn't think that there was going to be a multi-billion dollar company in the area of market research surveys, but we were lucky enough to find that company relatively early on and spend the time b…”
Accel invested in Qualtrics, Rovio, and Atlassian via its growth fund
“The Qualtrics, the Rovios, the Alassians are all bets out of the growth fund, as it turns out.”
Accel reserves at least 1:1 follow-on capital for Series A investments
“When you do an early stage investment, On average, we at least reserve an equal amount of capital. So if you put in an eight million dollar series A, one might reserve eight, 10, eleven million dollars, you know, for follow-on rounds to support the company as …”
Accel's most recent publicly announced investment is Cairo-based Instabug
“The most recent publicly announced investment is a company called Instabug, which is based out of Cairo, Egypt.”
Algolia raised a $53 million Series B led by Accel
“Just last week, he raised a whopping fifty-three million dollar Series B, led by Excel, with participation from Sasta, Des Trainer at Intercom, Jotty Bansal at AppDynamics, and Carl Valberg at Envision, including Prior Investors .9 Capital and Alvin.”
Accel made its first New Zealand investment in accounting software Xero
“In New Zealand, even, we did our first Kiwi investment this year, a company called Xero.”
Accel rejected James Cameron's startup pitch before hiring him as an investor
“But oddly enough, the first interaction I had with Accel was when I went in there and I was pitching them my business. So I was on the other side of the table from where I am now. And it was a good experience. You know, I was politely shown the door. I said, t…”
Fred Destin Has Fired Only Two Startup Founders in His Career
“So one of the great failings for me is when we have to let a founder go, and I hate doing it, and it's only happened twice in my career, and I hope it doesn't happen again.”
Kanji: Accel operates European venture funds exceeding $500 million each
“Axel's more than half a million, half a billion per fund, so 500 something plus Per fund.”
Treskow: Accel invested early in Facebook despite an unquantifiable market size
“So, so Facebook is, is a great example. You know, when we invested early on, you know, what's, what's the size of Facebook's market, right?”
Treskow: Accel announces investment in Spanish mapping startup CartoDB
“Yeah, so, so we just announced an investment in CartuDB, which is a Spanish mapping data processing and visualization engine that we're super excited about.”
GM Pension Fund has invested in every Accel fund since Accel I
“GM had been an investor in venture funds since the late seventies. They're invested in Excel, for example, all the way on from Excel number one all the way on through.”
Swartz: Accel was named to be near the alphabet's beginning
“The Accel name, both Arthur and I spent our lives at the tail end of the alphabet. We wanted something at the front end of the alphabet. Going through a dictionary, he came across, it's actually a music term. It's short for accelerando, if you're into music.”