Accel, the 39-year-old venture firm, just pulled a major power move. It announced, via a simple blog post, that it has just closed a new, global, late-stage fund with $4 billion in capital commitments.
The fund, which closed last week, would be notable in any market. It’s a lot of money. But at a moment when two of Accel’s fiercest rivals — SoftBank and Tiger Global Management — are low on capital, it must be a particularly sweet moment for the firm, which now employs around 100 investors (and 200 employees altogether) across offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, London and Bangalore.
Indeed, assuming the market is undergoing a reset and not a major, years-long correction, Accel’s timing could hardly be better. The only question is whether it should have scaled back its ambitions as market conditions shifted this spring. (We reached out to Accel earlier today for comment but a spokesperson pointed us back to the firm’s blog post.)
It wouldn’t be the first time that Accel has given money back to its in …
