Deepening Our Commitment to the Earliest Stages of a Founder’s Journey with Accel Atoms 4.0

Early-stage is Accel's DNA. With Accel Atoms, we bring the best of Accel's learnings and network to pre-seed founders who want to build companies that create exceptional impact.

The pre-seed journey is as thrilling as it is humbling. At this critical juncture, beyond capital, founders need a strong support system—a community of experienced voices who’ve navigated this exact path. The right support at the right time can be the difference between success and obscurity, turning ambitious ideas into industry leaders.

Accel Atoms has had three successful editions to date, and the validation is in the results—the 32+ companies in the first three Accel Atoms cohorts have collectively raised over $200M from global investors so far. Accel has led or participated in all follow-on rounds, which is true to our goal of partnering with exceptional teams from seed to scale.

‍Pallavi Chakravorty, founder of Meritic, part of our Accel Atoms 3.0 cohort, articulates it best: “Beyond the capital and learning sessions, being part of Accel Atoms has given us a strong founder community and highly collaborative peer group. When Meritic is faced with a challenge, we turn to Accel’s network of over 200 portfolio company founders to arrive at a solution.”

Accel Atoms will remain in perpetual beta. We find this to be a necessary mindset for building the most founder-centric pre-seed scaling program in the world. Over the last three editions, we have iterated in response to feedback from founders, investors, and mentors who share our vision of giving Indian-origin founders globally the best foundations for success.

Deepening Our Commitment with Accel Atoms 4.0

1. We remain committed to our thematic focus with the launch of AI and Bharat cohorts.
2. We are deepening our commitment and will invest up to $1 million for startups that make exceptional progress during Atoms, with access to top investors for all selected startups.
3. We are bringing over $5 million in perks from leaders such as AWS, Google, Stripe, and more for all selected startups, to provide their initial infrastructure needs.
4. We are setting founders up with mentorship from top industry experts in AI and Bharat for all selected startups.

Founders, whether you are in the idea, MVP validation, or pre-revenue stage, we urge you to take a crack at the future. Applications to Accel Atoms 4.0 open on September 16th 2024. We can’t wait to hear from you and see what you’re building. Add the key dates to your calendars!

About our Accel Atoms 4.0 AI and Bharat cohorts‍

The shift to a thematic program design for Accel Atoms 3.0 enabled us to provide deeper, sector-focused mentorship and personalize it to the needs of a smaller group of exceptional founders. With the next edition, we are excited to focus on AI and Bharat.

About the 4.0 AI cohort

Our Accel Atoms 4.0 AI cohort will be our second AI cohort led by Prayank Swaroop. AI is the biggest inflection point of the decade, at par with the internet, mobile and cloud, and we want founders in AI to have the best advantage as they navigate this dynamic space.

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70% of the Accel Atoms portfolio consists of founders building in AI, and we have invested in over 27 AI companies in the last two years alone.

For our AI cohort, we are looking for:

• Startups by visionary Indian-origin founders based anywhere in the world building companies that are using AI innovatively for business applications or building development tools for the AI ecosystem.
• We are looking for compelling use cases across the AI stack: from the foundational layer (small language models on the edge, data & models for modalities like video & robotics, and more) to the infrastructure layer (testing tools & frameworks, securing complex LLM-powered systems, etc.) and application layer (core AI models & agents across use cases). Find more specifics on our AI cohort page.

About the 4.0 Bharat cohort

At Accel, we define Bharat as the middle-income households spread across Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural India. We are structurally bullish on the Bharat story, and believe this landscape is ripe for disruption. The Bharat consumer is waiting to be served with innovative products and services. The time is ripe for founders to take a crack at the Bharat Opportunity.

For Accel Atoms 4.0, we are looking for innovative founders targeting this market, who are creating scalable, economically feasible solutions tailored to the Bharat consumer’s evolving needs.

For our Bharat cohort we are looking for startups across sectors, including but not limited to:

• Emerging e-commerce companies (building efficient supply chains and/or the right customer experience)
• Financial services targeting individuals or businesses in Bharat
• Healthcare platforms and solutions making healthcare accessible and affordable
• Ed-tech, upskilling and recruitment solutions
• OTT and content platforms
• Bharat-first consumer brands

Our 4.0 Bharat cohort will be the first Accel Atoms cohort to be led by Anand Daniel and we have designed a tailored 12-week learning program in collaboration with xto10x.

Don’t forget to follow Accel Atoms on social media, X, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to get the latest updates and information on the program.

Head to the Accel Atoms website to learn more about this year’s program.

—Prayank Swaroop and Anand Daniel, partners at Accel