The fund, which will make seed and early stage investments in India, has attracted institutional investors from North America, Europe and Asia during the fundraisings, says a statement from the firm. It will focus on investing in the sub-continent’s internet services, digital media, software-as-a-service and enterprise technologies sectors as well as mobile, healthcare and education.

Accel, which has Palo Alto, California, New York, London and Bangalore, and whose global investments include Dropbox, Facebook and Groupon, currently has 34 portfolio companies in India. These include the start-ups Flipkart, Myntra, Letsbuy, HealthcareMagic, Babyoye, and Exclusively.in.

Subrata Mitra, partner at Accel, says, ‘While traditional venture capital and growth equity have been increasingly drawn to India over the past several years, the true seed and early stage markets are still under-served, attracting relatively smaller amounts of capital.

‘We have seen a significant increase in entrepreneurial activity in the last few years, and in particular, we are pleased to see strong momentum from internet companies in India. We believe that our global experience and expertise will help us become the preferred partner for many top-class entrepreneurs in this space.’

Accel’s India team will evaluate select late-stage investments in India in conjunction with this global growth equity effort, the statement says. Accel manages $3 billion in funds for these later stage growth investments, and currently has over $8 billion under management worldwide.