Accel, which is one of the most active venture capital firms in India, has expanded its local partnership team by elevating three long-serving executives.
Abhinav Chaturvedi, Prayank Swaroop and Barath Shankar Subramanian have been promoted from principals to partners, Accel's website shows.
Accel India now has nine partners on board. The other partners are Subrata Mitra, Prashanth Prakash, Mahendran Balachandran, Anand Daniel, Shekhar Kirani and Dinesh Katiyar.
Chaturvedi, who had joined Accel in 2012, is either on the board or actively works with management teams at nine portfolio companies including student accommodation platform Stanza Living, home services marketplace UrbanClap and business-to-business agri-marketing platform Ninjacart. A graduate of Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, Chaturvedi had worked with Amazon before joining Accel.
Swaroop, who had joined Accel in 2011, focuses on investments in consumer mobile/internet, brands, digital media, business-to-business and financial technologies. He has led investments in companies such as packaging materials marketplace Bizongo and mobile gaming startup Mech Mocha. Swaroop, a graduate of IIT Delhi, had earlier worked with Adobe Systems and Standard Chartered Bank in India and Singapore before joining Accel.
Subramanian had joined Accel in 2012 after a stint as a senior consultant at Frost & Sullivan with focus on the healthcare and life sciences sectors. A graduate of Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS), Pilani, Subramanian works closely with home healthcare services provider Portea and medical-technology startup SigTuple.
Accel retained its status as one of the most active venture capital investors last year as it settled for second spot behind Sequoia Capital with 24 deals as compared with 38 in 2017.
Separately, The Times of India said that Accel was looking for more opportunities to invest in India. Its peer Sequoia Capital had established a presence in Southeast Asia in 2012.
US-headquartered Accel, which has been an early backer of leading internet companies including Flipkart and FreshDesk, had raised its first India fund—$10 million Accel India Venture Fund— in 2006. It raised its $64 million second fund in 2008 and $155 million third fund in 2011. In 2014, Accel raised $305 million (Rs 1,900 crore) for its fourth India fund. The venture capital firm followed this up with a $450 million new fund in 2016.
Last August, Sequoia Capital India had also announced key promotions even as a string of top executives quit the firm to launch their own venture.
Blume Ventures also elevated its chief financial officer (CFO) Ashish Fafadia as a partner last year.
