Accel

“One of the things that we’ve learnt over the years, is that venture is a people business. And what makes great companies is the entrepreneurs behind them. I think we continue to have a really steady flow of great entrepreneurs emerging.” Harry Nelis and Financial Times' Tim Bradshaw sit down to discuss the biggest lessons learnt as Accel marks its 25th anniversary in Europe.

We see immense potential in the future of AI-driven software collaboration, and Graphite is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. Their talented team, led by co-founders Merrill Lutsky, Tomas Reimers, and Greg Foster, is dedicated to transforming how developers work together. We're excited to support their vision and help them shape the future of software engineering. Read more from our partner Christine Esserman cc Rich Wong and Joshua Fang #AccelFamily https://lnkd.in/guTq5zYU

“Try to look serious, they said.” Promise, I’m smiling on the inside. Super proud of our team for making it into the New York Times print edition: "A.I. Is Changing How Silicon Valley Builds Start-Ups." The piece captures something incredibly profound that's happening across the tech landscape: When we started Gamma in 2020, we didn't set out to rewrite the startup playbook. But here we are with 28 people, tens of millions in ARR, nearly 50 million users, and yes … profitability. The old model would have demanded 200+ employees by now. 10x the current team. Multiple funding rounds. Burn, burn, burn. Instead, we've embraced amplified execution — using AI tools to maximize the impact of every team member: — Engineers using Cursor to write better code faster — Customer insights analyzed through NotebookLM  — Support powered by Intercom's AI — Marketing visuals created with Midjourney This isn't just about doing more with less—it's about fundamentally changing what's possible at each stage of company building. The most exciting part? We're still early. DeepSeek's breakthrough was a watershed moment — the cost to build and scale powerful AI systems is plummeting while capabilities increase exponentially. My prediction: A decade from now, we'll look back at today's "tiny teams" as the beginning of a massive shift in how value is created. The $1M ARR per employee benchmark will become commonplace. For founders, this means you can stay focused on customers and product much longer. A total dream.

Always great catching up with Accel partner & G2 investor Arun Mathew, sharing lessons from building and scaling SaaS businesses. 🚀 At G2, we're fortunate to have a community of supportive leaders to help guide our growth, including our investors, board members, and Executive Advisory Board. My conversation with Arun is coming soon as a podcast episode from Accel - stay tuned! 🎙️

📣 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝗱𝗶𝗴’𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺: Gary Olson as CRO & Crendal Kear as CBO! Gary, who drove significant revenue growth at companies like Snyk, Zscaler, and Blue Coat Systems will serve as Sysdig’s new Chief Revenue Officer. Crendal, a proven leader from Talkdesk, Exabeam, NetApp, and Zscaler steps into the role of Chief Business Officer, bringing her expertise in building high-performing teams and driving operational excellence. 🌟 On the heels of 𝟯𝟯𝟳% 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝗱𝗶𝗴 𝗦𝗮𝗴𝗲™ 𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 over the past 8 months and >𝟰𝟬𝟬% 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗔, Gary and Crendal’s leadership will be instrumental in driving Sysdig toward $𝟮𝟱𝟬𝗠 𝗔𝗥𝗥 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙙. 🚀 Read our press release to learn more about their vision and the exciting journey ahead. 👉 https://okt.to/Alvnxm

Today, Vercel welcomes Jeanne DeWitt Grosser as Chief Operating Officer. Jeanne helped take Stripe from $100M to billions, pioneered usage-based go-to-market strategies, and scaled some of the most influential developer platforms. Now, she's bringing that momentum to Vercel as we build the foundation for the next billion developers. https://vercel.fyi/jeanne

Arkady Volozh's story is remarkable: he spent nearly three decades building Yandex– valued at $30 billion at its peak – before divesting the company’s Russian assets and pivoting the remaining company into AI infrastructure. Now, he’s building Nebius. Nebius is unique among companies that call themselves startups. As it currently exists, it is less than a year old; it’s also listed on NASDAQ as a publicly traded company. Nebius's hundreds of engineers have spent years working together building out digital infrastructure, but have been rapidly redeployed to focus on what Arkady has determined is the next generational opportunity: the cloud infrastructure needed to drive the AI transformation. On this episode of Spotlight On, Matt Weigand sat down with Arkady to talk about: ▶️ The journey to Nebius ▶️ What he’s learned about building teams and infrastructure ▶️ What’s to come for the prolific founder. The latest episode is live here: https://lnkd.in/e7N7Gket

At the heart of Nebius's unique story is our heritage and the vision of our founder, Arkady Volozh. In the latest edition of Accel's "Spotlight On..." podcast hosted by Matt Weigand – the Accel partner who led the storied VC firm's investment in Nebius last year – Arkady talks in depth about what makes Nebius unique, his experience as a founder of multiple successful tech companies, and the best thing he's read recently. Thanks to Matt and the Accel team for the fascinating discussion. Watch the podcast here 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eauMVMVq

Ask any founder: when you're building a startup, mistakes are inevitable. Tailscale founder Avery Pennarun tells us success isn't about avoiding mistakes; it's about making them cheaply and quickly. Avery is a two-time founder and a fount of wisdom on how to build companies. We loved the conversation he had with Amit Kumar on our latest episode of Spotlight On (link below).

ICYMI Accel Partner Ben Quazzo joins Caroline Hyde and Jackie Davalos on Bloomberg to discuss our recent investment in Speak and why we believe AI is transforming audio and language learning, as well as our overall optimism about consumer AI. https://lnkd.in/gZGiRn9S