Audeo Ventures has raised $65 million for its second fund, which is expected to have a final close on March 30. The firm, based in Dubai, has a generalist investment strategy but is particularly focused on fintech, consumer tech and enterprise SaaS. It invests in seed through Series A companies.
Fund II will invest in up to 20 start-ups, with checks ranging from a minimum of $2 million up to $5 million. That’s an increase from the average $1 million checks it wrote from its debut fund, which closed on $17.5 million in 2023.
“We try to have a pretty concentrated approach to investing. It’s less spray and pray. It’s more real conviction in founders, taking at least 5 percent of the fund for initial check sizes,” says Pavel Tinkov, one of Audeo’s co-founders and general partners.
Audeo’s limited partners are mostly single and multifamily offices in the US, Europe and Asia, as well as some sovereign wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates, where Audeo’s general partners have developed good relationships, says Gregory Laurent Josi, Audeo’s other co-founder and GP.
“Our LP base is family offices because our funds are still on the smaller side for institutional attention. But I think that’s more of a Fund III discussion. We’re building relationships with them now,” says Tinkov.
Both Tinkov and Josi have been based in Dubai for the last year while they have been fundraising. They will likely relocate to the US in the coming months, with Tinkov eyeing the West Coast and Josi the East Coast. They expect 70 percent of the new fund to be deployed in the US, with the remaining 30 percent going to investments in Latin America.
Fund II’s one investment so far is in Plata, a Mexican company that Audeo first invested in from its debut fund, Audeo Ventures Opportunity Fund, in 2023. Plata is the developer of a financial platform aimed at transforming personal finance interactions.
“It’s already become quite a concentrated position for us as it’s a company that we’ve been following for a while,” Tinkov tells Venture Capital Journal. Plata raised a combination of $250 million in equity capital and $500 million in debt in October at a post-money valuation of $3.1 billion.
Fund II recently committed to a second deal, also in fintech, which will be announced shortly. Tinkov and Josi expect to make a total of four to five investments this year.
“We see quite a lot of opportunity in Latin American fintech,” says Tinkov. “There’s less opportunity in US fintech companies, as a lot of capital has shifted recently to generative AI. So we’re seeing less attention being paid to fintech founders, which is good for us because, as a small fund, it means we’re able to access those deals better.”
Audeo has been pursuing a fintech strategy specifically in Mexico, where “we think a lot of the rails for traditional banking and payments, and even B2B and B2C, have not really been built out yet,” Tinkov notes. “We’re seeing a lot of really smart, talented founders that have grown up in the States or have worked in the big US fintech companies and move back to Latam and start analogs of those businesses locally.”
In addition to Mexico, the firm is tracking several fintech start-ups being launched in Colombia, Argentina and Brazil, building on the success of fintech in the US.
Prior to launching Audeo, Tinkov and Josi founded LJTS Group, a global macro hedge fund, with select private market opportunities, which was based in London. Tinkov served as chief operating officer, and Josi was managing director and chief investment officer. LJTS Group’s private market division fully merged with Audeo Ventures in 2021.
Recent exits from Audeo’s debut fund include Monite and Caramel. Monite, developer of financial management software designed to automate accounting and administrative tasks, was acquired earlier this month by UK-based digital bank OakNorth for an undisclosed amount. Caramel, a digital platform for vehicle sales, was acquired by eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) in February 2025 for an undisclosed amount.
