Eksim Ventures

Eksim Ventures is the corporate venture arm of Eksim Holding, a diversified Turkish conglomerate, with strategic investments in health tech including AI-powered imaging startups such as SmartAlpha, writing Seed and Series A checks in the $1M to $5M range. The fund’s positioning is corporate-strategic with a deepening healthcare focus: Eksim has actively expanded its healthcare portfolio with a particular interest in AI-powered diagnostics and clinical imaging. Healthcare relevance is AI in healthcare, diagnostic imaging, clinical AI, and B2B health software targeting Turkish and broader regional providers. Founders pursuing pure consumer wellness, biotech, or care delivery should look elsewhere. The right founder is a Turkish or Turkish-diaspora technical operator, often with strong ML and clinical research credentials, building an AI-first health product with credible international ambition, often US or EU as the eventual primary market. Eksim is most useful when the founder values a strategic corporate partner with healthcare interest beyond the venture capital relationship, and when the founder is comfortable with corporate-venture cadence and governance. Geographic and strategic advantage is access to Eksim Holding’s broader portfolio, Turkish corporate and regulator relationships, and connectivity into Turkish healthcare operators. The flip side is corporate venture cadence: pilots and decisions track parent-conglomerate priorities, and strategic priorities can shift with Eksim’s broader business posture. Best entry is via the Eksim Ventures team, the parent’s open-innovation programs, or warm referrals from CEOs who have executed commercial relationships inside the Eksim ecosystem. Cold inbound is read but conversion correlates with strategic clarity. Lead the pitch with technical depth, the data asset, model evaluation rigor, real or proposed pilot relationships, and a credible international expansion plan. AI healthcare founders should describe FDA or CE strategy, multi-language model performance, and clinical validation pathways. Caveats: lira volatility shapes cap table conversations and operating budgets, and Turkish founders often structure rounds with FX hedging and dollar-denominated holding structures. Negotiate exclusivity, MFN, and right-of-first-refusal language carefully, since later international Series B leads will scrutinize these. Confirm whether the check is balance-sheet or fund-structured, ask about reserves and follow-on policy, and clarify the relationship between Eksim Ventures and the parent’s broader strategic priorities. Reference checks with current portfolio CEOs on operating support and commercial value realized inside Eksim are essential. Used appropriately, Eksim is a credible Turkish corporate-strategic partner for healthcare AI founders; for pure financial venture funding, founders have other options in the Turkish ecosystem.