Zest Equity builds digital infrastructure and a proprietary transactional stack to streamline private market transactions end-to-end. Its first product enables clients to group stakeholders into a single legal vehicle (SPV), digitizing execution processes and improving efficiency across the GCC. The platform targets private market workflows by combining legal structuring with digital execution tools. Founded in 2021 by Zuhair Shamma and Rawan Baddour, the company is headquartered in Dubai, UAE. Zest Equity plans to use new funding to expand operations and accelerate product development. The company’s current financial update is the $4.3M Pre-Series A close led by Prosus Ventures with participation from Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures. Zest Equity offers a tech-first platform that digitizes private market transactions, enabling founders and investors to invite participants, share pitch decks and cap tables, and track deal processes online. The platform also provides legal infrastructure to form syndicates or special purpose vehicles, keeping cap tables clean and reducing administrative costs. Zest is building tools to standardize and accelerate secondary share trades, including setting liquidity windows, controlling liquidation, and approving information sharing to improve transparency and speed. The company says its tools save time for VCs and angels and make it easier for investors to access liquidity. The startup plans to use new funding to build additional tools to further streamline and automate deal workflows. Zest has raised a $3.8M seed in this round, bringing total funding to $5.7M.

Total raised

$8M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Apr 2025