Cedar Capital Announces First Close of USD 30 Mn Fintech Fund Almost 15 early-stage firms would get investments from Cedar Capital's fund, which would primarily target business-to-business (B2B) fintech and banking technology startups.
By Entrepreneur Staff •
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Cedar Capital, the fintech-focused venture capital brainchild of global consulting and research group, Cedar and IBS Intelligence, has announced the first close of its Rs 240 crore (USD 30 million) early-stage fund.
The fund has gathered commitments in the range of INR 50-75 crores (USD 6-9 million). In this round of participation, limited partners include prominent family offices and institutional investors from India and the Middle East.
"Despite the negative venture capital environment, we have had success in attracting interest for our fund in light of our BankTech and B2B sector-specialist focus and our global research and consulting reputation over 60+ years," said Sahil Anand, Founder and Managing Partner, Cedar Capital.
Cedar Capital aims to invest in approximately 15 early-stage banktech-focused firms in their seed-Series A rounds, with an initial cheque size of INR 4-10 crores (USD 500k-1 million).
As per the official release, the fund will primarily support seasoned business entrepreneurs who are developing technology and solutions in the field of bank technology (banktech); enterprise fintechs that are finding solutions for use cases and issues within banks, insurance firms, NBFCs, and other financial services players.
"Our focus on banktech and fintech comes naturally to us. We have been in the heart of the ecosystem for 60+ years by way of our management consulting for global CTOs and Banks via Cedar, market intelligence and go-to-market advisory for the world's leading BankTechs and FinTechs via IBS Intelligence, and ecosystem development via the Cedar-IBSi FinTech Lab." Anand added.
Sahil emphasised that as we are looking to do our first deal, we have spoken to nearly 50 founders so far, and the good news is that we are being viewed as a unique early-stage investor with an operator mindset and ability to really move the needle and help them grow.
Last year, Cedar Capital also roped in Subit Saurav from Aavishkar Capital, to co-lead investments with Sahil, and Sunny Desa from YES Bank's Financial Investor Strategy team, to lead Investor Relations and FinTech investments. Four Operating Partners with over 20 years of combined expertise in banktech and CTO advisory, from Cedar and IBSi, provide additional support to the core fund investments team.
To oversee governance and fund strategy, Cedar Capital's advisory board consists of industry stalwarts such as Sanjiv Anand, Chairman, Cedar Group, Pradip Shah, Founder, CRISIL & HDFC, Bobby Parikh, Co-founder, BMR Advisors, Felipe Martinez, CIO, Revolut, and Sandeep Chouhan, a senior banker and technologist for leading GCC banks.
