Wharton Tech Toks Accel: Investing in the future
10 snips
Apr 10, 2025 
Vas Natarajan, a partner at Accel with extensive experience in infrastructure and AI investing, shares insights into venture capital. He discusses his journey from Insight to Accel and how venture firms can identify lasting value in AI. Vas also explores how startups can disrupt incumbents by focusing on underserved users and adopting unique distribution strategies. Furthermore, he emphasizes the importance of founder traits and non-consensus markets for success, suggesting that enduring advantages in AI lie more in user experience and branding than in mere technology.
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How Accel Grew With Founders
- Vas Natarajan recounts Accel's geographic growth from New York to Silicon Valley, London, and India driven by following technical founders.
- He describes serendipity that led him to Accel after a chance meeting at a conference that changed his career path.
Stage Expansion Fueled By Bootstrapping
- Accel expanded across stages because founders delayed fundraising and bootstrapped to scale using cloud and open source.
- They launched a growth fund to invest later in companies that reached scale without early VC capital.
Atlassian And Qualtrics As Late Investments
- Vas shares cases like Atlassian and Qualtrics that scaled with customer funding before Accel invested later.
- These examples motivated Accel's growth fund to participate in successful bootstrapped companies.