Fund & Thesis

We are a leading early-stage FinTech venture capital fund with a sharp lens on B2B FinTech and Financial Services-infrastructure companies. The fund has achieved a First Close and has completed initial investments in Cogniquest and WonderLend Hubs, both disruptive solutions that address large opportunities in Banking and Financial Services and beyond.

Our FinTech obsession and fund thesis are built on the legacy of Cedar Consulting (www.cedar-consulting.com) and IBS Intelligence (www.ibsintelligence.com), a platform that brings together over 60 years of research and management consulting experience with banks and technology players worldwide.

Our Founder, Sahil Anand, is credited for being the creator behind one of the region’s only FinTech Labs and ecosystems, which since 2017 has successfully accelerated more than 55 FinTechs across the region (www.cedaribsifintechlab.com).

Few understand FinTech as deeply as we do. The fund is dedicated to backing FinTech and BankTech infrastructure companies, powered by the expertise and track record of our investing and operating team. Our unique edge is in our ability to deliver transformational value to founders – combining the team’s experience with the Cedar legacy platform’s 60+ years of credibility and domain expertise. We make capital work like no other.

The fund is independently structured, follows a classic LP-GP model, and is backed by leading institutional and family office investors across the region.

Category: Category II Alternative Investment Fund
Registration Number: IN/AIF2/22-23/1185
Investment Manager: Cedar-IBSi Ventures Private Limited

B2B FinTech/BankTech Focus

An under-leveraged opportunity and is core to the evolution of the global Financial Services ecosystem
Strong legacy and credibility via a 60+ year research and consulting track-record in this space
Focus on profitable and scalable technology businesses with clear unit economics

Proven founder value-add

Subject matter expertise
Access to mentors at Cedar and IBS Intelligence
CTO and wider Banking network
RFPs via the Cedar-IBSi FinTech Lab
Visibility with the right audience
Global expansion and GTM support

In-house FinTech Lab

History and credibility of assisting 55+ B2B FinTechs since 2017
Marketplace model and cohort programs help FinTechs boost growth across areas
Multi-region lab between Europe, the Middle East, and India
$850 mn+ successfully raised by past and current lab members

FinTech super-specialists

Built on a legacy of transforming FinTech for 300+ banks globally
Built on a legacy of advising 500+ global FinTechs on product, growth, and market strategy
Proprietary research and data on emerging players and trends. 5,000+ FinTechs profiled by our teams

Deep ecosystem access

1-1 relationships with founders
70+ FinTechs screened weekly
Proprietary FinTech directories
FinTech lab with regular cohorts
Global research across system types
15+ annual summits and conferences

Strong fund manager network

Access to global FinTech strategics
Access to banks and financial services players across the region
Associations with key industry bodies

Often taken for granted and requires expertise of use-cases & banking technology. This is our core competitive advantage. Multiple global banking infrastructure companies have scaled in our FinTech Lab.

FinTech and Banking veterans with complimentary skillsets, building product-oriented companies. Strong unit economics and a path to profitability are natural.

We enter early-stage but at revenue-stage when at least 1-2 paying enterprise clients exist. This mitigates some risk. Additionally, our ability to value-create earlier via bank access is unique. This excites us.

B2B FinTech solutions are geography agnostic. Our ability to take portfolio companies to dollar-revenue markets such as the Middle East and Europe is a key investment factor.