Eximius Ventures Announces $30 Million Fund II for Pre-Seed Investments

Eximius Ventures Fund-II plans to make dedicated investments in 25-30 companies across fintech, AI/SaaS, frontier tech, and consumer tech sectors.

National, Jan 23 2025: Eximius Ventures, a pre-seed focused venture capital firm (VC), has announced the launch of its second fund, targeting a corpus of $30 million. Fund II plans to take dedicated bets in 25-30 companies across fintech, artificial intelligence (AI)/software-as-a-service (SaaS), frontier tech, and consumer tech, with an initial cheque of $500K each while reserving half of the corpus for follow-on investments, to further support its high-potential portfolio companies.

Fund II has already invested in four companies across consumer tech and AI/Saas. These investments have either been led or co-led by Eximius Ventures alongside other marquee institutional investors, reflecting the firm’s strategic approach to identifying and leading the next wave of disruptors. This continues to build on Eximius’ philosophy of focused pre-seed investments as opposed to cohort-driven or spray-pray approach.

Commenting on the launch of Fund II, Pearl Agarwal, Founder and Managing Partner at Eximius Ventures, said, “At a time when funding is becoming increasingly selective, Eximius is doubling down on pre-seed startups, with an aim to drive momentum in India’s innovation ecosystem. We reject the ‘spray and pray’ mentality, especially at the earliest stages, and instead focus on backing bold, thesis-driven ideas with contrarian view points. Our goal is to bridge the gap for founders seeking their first institutional capital, while enabling them to thrive in a competitive global market. With this new fund, we’re excited to accelerate growth and forge long-term partnerships with visionary founders.”

Led by Pearl Agarwal and Preeti Sampat, with a global investment experience of over 25 years combined, Eximius Ventures boasts a diversified team of eight members, each dedicated to a focus sector. This approach helps develop deep insights to identify the most promising founders and ideas, offering them early-stage support to scale and succeed. In addition to this, the investment committee also consists of sector experts with 40+ years of operating and financial experience.

Following the success of its inaugural $10 million fund launched in 2021, Fund II enables Eximius Ventures to further scale its support for innovators. The fund will draw capital from a diverse mix of limited partners (LPs), including high net-worth individuals (HNIs), founder-investors, family offices, as well as global Japanese corporate venture companies (CVCs).

“We will be looking at companies led by seasoned operators and entrepreneurs, solving with a first principle mindset and exceptional execution capacity in a large market,” Pearl highlighted.

Eximius Ventures’ Fund I has already made significant strides, having invested in 23 companies. About 60% of these portfolio companies have secured multiple up-rounds from prominent global investors, delivering an IRR of greater than 40%. Fund II will double down on the success of Fund I using a similar strategy. Some of the standout investments include:

• Jar, a micro-savings app democratising access to the most popular savings product in India, Gold, for the next billion users allowing them to invest small amounts in, lease, and borrow against digital gold.

• Finarkein, a workflow orchestration and data analytics platform, leading the account aggregator revolution.

• Vegapay, a plug-and-play credit card platform designed to help financial institutions and fintechs launch their own lending and card businesses.

• Stan, a gamified engagement platform for gamers, creators, and fans to connect, collect cards from professional players, and trade through auctions and marketplaces.