Zest Equity raises $3.8 million in seed round to accelerate transactions

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Zest Equity raises $3.8 million in seed round to accelerate transactions

Zest Equity, a startup that is aiming to digitize private market transactions, has raised $3.8 million in seed money to build more tools for enabling fast and transparent transactions by ecosystem players while increasing their liquidity through secondary deals.

Middle East Venture Partners led the seed round, with participation from the Dubai Future District Fund and DASH Ventures. The new round brings the startup's funding to $5.7 million.

The founders of Zest Equity were originally intent on establishing a platform for secondary trading, but it quickly evolved into a platform that enabled ecosystem players like founders and venture capitalists to transact online and quickly. Typically, these players transact offline, which can be tedious, obscure, and costly.

Baddour says they chose to take this route because of the lack of infrastructure to empower communication, connection and information sharing amongst different stakeholders in a cost-effective and digitized way.

We're Digitalisierung is actually very manual, and we have taken a tech-first approach to automate as much as we can, while building a platform that is unique and scalable, said Baddour, a former banking executive.

Zest Equity's tools, as well as tools, invite investors to funding rounds, share information such as pitch decks and cap tables, and track deal processes. Investors can submit their interest, see other VCs participating in the round, and sign documents.

Zest provides the legal infrastructure to enable investors, such as angels, group and form investment syndicates or special purpose vehicles, to pursue shared venture interest. This saves time, administrative expense, and makes it easy for VCs, especially angels, to invest.

's need for this solution is growing,' said Walid Mansour, president of MEVP.