AccelVenture capital firm Accel said Tuesday it's raised $650 million for its eighth fund targeted at investing in European and Israeli early-stage startups, in a sign the venture capital market may be showing signs of a recovery. "The environment has dramatically changed since then," Nelis told CNBC. Climate-focused VC firm World Fund closed a 300 million euro fund in March. "We're lucky that with DeepMind here in London and with Fair [Facebook AI Research] in Paris, there's at least two big centers that have great AI expertise," Nelis told CNBC. "My expectation is Europe is going to generate some really interesting AI application companies," Nelis told CNBC.

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Persons: Harry Nelis, Sonali de Rycker, Andrei Brasoveanu, Luca Bocchio, Philippe Botteri, it's, Nelis, UiPath, Russia's, Wise, Magnus Grimeland, Grimeland, there's, Victor Riparbelli, Synthesia, Riparbelli Organizations: Accel, Accel Venture, Spotify, CNBC, Skype, U.S, Nvidia Locations: Europe, Israel, Lithuania, Romania, Ukraine, New York, U.S, London, Paris, Synthesia