Award winner - Summit | Hall of Fame 2025: Accel’s Sonali De Rycker

Sonali De Rycker, Partner at Accel, is inducted into the EUVC Hall of Fame 2025 in this awards presentation from the EUVC Summit & Awards Show 2026.The award recognises individuals who have shaped European venture over more than a decade through the founders they backed, the firms they helped build and the ideas they advanced.Sonali joined Accel in 2008 and invests across consumer internet, software and fintech. Her investments include Spotify, one of the companies that helped establish what a globally significant European technology business could look like.In her acceptance remarks, she reflects on choosing Europe at a time when the ecosystem was fragmented and widely considered far behind Silicon Valley. What she saw instead were founders building without much infrastructure or support, often far beyond the continent’s established technology hubs.She also discusses how Europe has strengthened as founders recycle talent, experience and capital into new companies, and why AI gives the continent another opportunity to build global leaders. Throughout, she returns to the belief that has shaped her career: exceptional European founders can build companies with global impact.The EUVC Summit & Awards Show returns in 2027. Find out more.