Accel, a venture capital firm, announced on Tuesday that it had launched a $650 million fund to invest in early-stage firms in Israel and Europe, with an emphasis on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

This new fund will be Accel’s ninth since the company’s establishment in 2000 in London. Accel has invested in over 100 firms and has supported over 200 companies in 20 countries in the region so far.

According to Accel partner Harry Nelis, “it takes about three years to invest the fund and then the life of a fund is typically about 12 years,” noting that Accel will make investments in 25 to 30 new startups.

Accel, well-known for its early investments in businesses like Dropbox and Meta, has also made significant investments in prominent European firms including Supercell, Deliveroo, and Spotify.

Dealroom data indicates that the European and Israeli venture capital markets have experienced rapid growth, with projected investments of $66 billion in 2023, in contrast to $150 billion in the US market. By contrast, in 2003 the investments totaled only $1.1 billion, whereas in the U.S. they totaled $17 billion.

“AI is going to be a big platform shift that will probably run for the next 10 years and we expect to place a good number of bets in AI companies,” Nelis said.

Although interesting AI startups can arise anywhere in Europe, he claimed that London and Paris have emerged as centers for AI research and development. “London because of DeepMind and Paris because of Facebook AI Research (FAIR).”

Alphabet now owns the AI research facility DeepMind, located in London. 2015 saw Meta launch FAIR in Paris, which has now grown to become its center for AI developments.