In this episode of The Neon Show, we bring you into the room with someone who’s spent over a decade backing India’s most ambitious companies.

We're joined by Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel. With over 14 years in venture capital, Prayank walks us through his journey of discovering and building expertise in specific sectors—from cybersecurity and developer tools to SaaS and marketplaces—and how VCs identify the categories they truly understand.

We dive into how Accel chooses best founders, and the balance between backing founder versus business across stages. Prayank shares his candid thoughts on why India has been slow and late to the AI race, and what a realistic way forward could look like for Indian startups.

He also offers a glimpse into Accel’s evolving investment thesis around AI, sector by sector, and talks about how the enterprise landscape is changing—and what that means for Indian founders building in this space.

Tune in!

0:00- Trailer

1:45 – Finding Great Founders

6:30 – What We'd Do Differently

10:16 – Sector Expertise Matters

13:15 – Where AI Money Should Go

18:00 – Accel’s GenAI Bets

21:18 – Sector-Wise Thesis in AI

23:24 – Growth means Product in AI

26:45 – Rise of Founder-Influencers

29:10 – $650million India Fund

31:35 – Beyond Roti, Kapda, Makaan

34:07 – Why Accel is Big on Content

36:03 – 15 Years in VC

38:16 – Highs & Lows of VC Ecosystem

43:36 – Knowledge Compounds in VC

49:45 – Conviction over Consensus

51:06 - Conclusion

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Hi, I am your host Siddhartha! I have been an entrepreneur from 2012-2017 building two products AddoDoc and Babygogo. After selling my company to SHEROES, I and my partner Nansi decided to start up again. But we felt unequipped in our skillset in 2018 to build a large company. We had known 0-1 journeys from our startups but lacked the experience of building 1-10 journeys.

Hence was born The Neon Show (Earlier 100x Entrepreneur) to learn from founders and investors, the mindset to scale yourself and your company. This quest still keeps us excited even after 5 years and doing 200+ episodes.

We welcome you to our journey to understand what goes behind building a super successful company. Every episode is done with a very selfish motive, that I and Nansi should come out as a better entrepreneur and professional after absorbing the learnings.

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Check us out on:

Website: https://neon.fund/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/

Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShoww

Connect with Siddhartha on:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/

Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7

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This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.

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How a VC Found His Niche | Prayank Swaroop’s 15-Year Journey at Accel

The Neon Show