With an emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity, venture capital firm Accel announced that it had launched a $650 million fund to invest in early-stage firms in Europe and Israel. The new fund will be Accel’s ninth investment since the company’s establishment in 2000 in London. The company has invested in over 100 firms and has supported over 200 companies in 20 countries in the region so far.

“It takes about three years to invest the fund and then the life of a fund is typically around 12 years,” Harry Nelis, a partner at Accel, said. Accel plans to invest in twenty to thirty new businesses. The firm, well-known for its early investments in businesses like Dropbox and Meta, has also made significant investments in prominent European firms, including Supercell, Deliveroo and Spotify.

According to the sources, it indicates that the European and Israeli venture capital markets have experienced rapid growth, with projected investments of $66 billion in 2023, in contrast to $150 billion in the US market.

“AI is going to be a big platform shift that will probably run for the next 10 years and we expect to place a good number of bets in AI companies,” Nelis said. Although interesting AI startups can arise anywhere in Europe, he claimed that London and Paris have emerged as centers for AI research and development. “London because of DeepMind and Paris because of Facebook AI Research (FAIR).”

Alphabet now owns the AI research facility DeepMind, located in London. 2015 saw Meta launch FAIR in Paris, which has now grown to become its center for AI developments.

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