Bengaluru, Apr 23 (PTI) Global venture capital firm Accel on Wednesday announced the promotion of Rachit Parekh and Pratik Agarwal to partner at its India office, a move that underlines its ongoing focus on growing its leadership from within.

Parekh and Agarwal joined Accel in 2019 and have played important roles across investment sourcing, founder partnerships, and portfolio support, Accel said in a statement to PTI.

Accel has been investing in India since 2008 and is known for being one of the earliest institutional partners to several breakout companies, including Flipkart, Freshworks, Swiggy, Zetwerk, and BlackBuck.

The promotions come at a time Accel is expanding its focus across new areas of innovation, including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and next-generation consumer and fintech models, according to the statement.

Earlier this year, the firm announced its eighth India-focused fund, with USD 650 million earmarked to back category-defining startups from seed through scale.

“With a growing team and renewed capital, Accel remains focused on identifying and supporting ambitious founders building for India and the world—bringing a hands-on approach, deep sector knowledge, and long-term alignment to every partnership,” it said.

In recent years, it has launched some key initiatives to make a founder’s journey as frictionless as possible and fuel the ecosystem’s growth.

The firm’s open-source content and community platform, SeedToScale, democratises company-building knowledge with actionable insights from successful founders, operators and industry leaders.

Its early-stage scaling programme, Accel Atoms – now in its fourth iteration – has supported 36 start-ups to date that have collectively raised over USD 200 million. PTI MBI MIN MIN