VC firm Accel launches SeedtoScale, an open knowledge platform for founders
Accel's SeedtoScale is a curated platform and involves a founder-for-founder approach, where the startup community works with experts and get insights to build successful businesses
Venture capital firm has launched SeedtoScale, a platform of insights, community engagement, and programmes to help founders at the seed stage.
The firm, which has backed nearly 170 companies, including the likes of , , , and , has a combined valuation at $50 billion.
Tailor-made for the startup ecosystem, Accel said the platform aims to help startups and aspiring entrepreneurs learn about the hard things that Accel’s portfolio companies have surpassed.
“We have been working on this for six months and several of the programmes leading up to this platform have been in the works for two years.As a VC, this is the closest to the product launch,” said Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel India.
He added that SeedtoScale is a curated platform and involves a founder-for-founder approach, where the startup community can work with experts and get insights to build a successful business.
Accel, which has been investing in SaaS, healthtech, fintech, and the consumer tech space for 15 years, has the knowledge of technology and consumer, making it one of the most successful VCs in India.
“Founders would like to know how we worked with Swiggy and TaxiForSure from their early days in a small room,” said Anand.
Accel India has conducted a lot of programmes till now to help the ecosystem, and with SeedtoScale, it is only formalising and creating a democratic framework to disseminate knowledge.
“There are a few things that all founders want. They want to know how to understand strategy and how to implement it. The founders will need to know how to create an organisation as well as how to handle sales and marketing in different markets,” said Anand.
By helping lay the foundation to starting up with this community-based learning, Accel hopes to give back to the startup ecosystem.
Over the last two years, Accel has also been running other programmes such as Insights, Program, and
Community. Accel ran a co-working space called LaunchPad and knowledge programmes Rebound and Founder Stack. It was also instrumental in setting up the SaaS Bhoomi and created a community engagement for product growth and scale.
Accel said it wants to share this knowledge because its portfolio companies have scaled with these ideas. The portfolio has hired 100,000 employees and has created 100 million customer touch points.
“We want to take this knowledge beyond a few cities. The founder will be at the epicenter of this,” said Shekhar Kirani, Partner at Accel.
Edited by Megha Reddy