Accel Shrinks Its Growth Fund, Bucking Trend to Go Bigger

Accel, a blue-blood of Sand Hill Road, is thinking smaller.

The firm publicly filed Thursday that it has raised $1.35 billion for its latest growth fund to invest in mature startups. That’s nearly a quarter less than the $1.75 billion it raised for its last growth fund in 2021.

The smaller fund is a tacit admission by one of the industry’s leaders of the challenges facing scores of venture capital firms—that there just aren’t enough good investment opportunities anymore, particularly among late-stage startups.