E84: How Accel Captures Companies Outside Traditional VC Reach with Andrew Braccia

Andrew Braccia, partner at Accel for nearly two decades, sits down with Erik Torenberg to discuss the firm's evolution from Silicon Valley early-stage investor to global, multi-stage powerhouse. Braccia explains Accel's two major strategic shifts: global expansion with local teams in Europe, India, and beyond; and the launch of their growth fund in 2008 targeting bootstrapped companies like Atlassian, Qualtrics, and Squarespace.

Braccia reflects on lessons from his journey from Yahoo to venture capital, emphasizing the importance of "wiping your mind clear" of past experiences that might cloud judgment of new opportunities.

The conversation provides rare insight into how Accel maintains operational excellence at global scale while preserving their early-stage venture DNA in an increasingly competitive landscape.

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LINKS:

AcceL: https://www.accel.com/ 

The Slack Origin Story: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/the-slack-origin-story/

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X / TWITTER:

@Accel

@eriktorenberg

@TurpentineVC

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE:

• Accel started over 40 years ago focusing on early-stage venture capital (seed, Series A) and maintains this core business today.
• The firm expanded globally to Europe, Israel, India, and other markets with separate teams and funds to identify defining technology companies worldwide.
• In 2008, Accel launched growth funds to invest in bootstrapped technology companies that didn't fit traditional Series A parameters.
• Notable growth investments included Atlassian, Qualtrics, Squarespace, and CrowdStrike, companies that might not have intersected with Accel otherwise.
• Global expansion and multi-stage investing introduced communication and coordination challenges that require strong partnerships to overcome.
• Andrew Braccia grew up in the Bay Area, studied business at University of Arizona, and joined Yahoo in 1998 when the internet was still emerging.
• Working at Yahoo gave Andrew broad exposure to various internet segments and connected him with talented people who later became successful entrepreneurs.
• Today's AI investment landscape has similarities to 1998-99, with high capital requirements and significant burn rates.
• In AI, Accel has invested more in infrastructure and application layers than foundational models, including companies like Scale AI and Decagon.
• Venture capital is becoming a permanent asset class that will continue to grow in capital allocation across various firm structures.
• Increasing competition in venture capital makes operational excellence and firm culture increasingly critical for long-term success.
• The biggest lesson Andrew learned is to avoid letting past experiences create "false negatives" that prevent seeing new opportunities. Another key lesson is not to fear failure and to take more shots with great entrepreneurs.
• The Squarespace investment in 2009-2010 exemplifies Accel's entrepreneur-focused approach and ability to support companies through multiple stages.
• The biggest mistake in venture capital is missing an opportunity because you didn't know it existed.
• Failures often stem from not moving quickly enough, lacking decisiveness, or carrying intellectual baggage about certain categories.