Zest Equity Unveils Full-Stack Private Market Platform Under ADGM’s Fintech Hub

Zest Equity is doubling down on its ambition to streamline private market transactions in the region, this time with two new regulated offerings under the Abu Dhabi Global Market framework.

The UAE-based digital transactions infrastructure firm has launched Zest Arrange, an arranging service regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), alongside Zest Escrow, a digital escrow solution introduced after the company secured its Financial Services Permission from the same authority. Both sit within ADGM’s regulatory perimeter, which has increasingly become a magnet for fintechs and private market players.

Together with Zest SPVs – the company’s existing special purpose vehicle solution – the new services form what it describes as a full-stack infrastructure layer for private deals. In simple words, dealmakers can now arrange investments, structure vehicles, and move funds through one digital workflow rather than juggling multiple providers. If you’ve ever seen how messy private transactions can get, with emails flying and documents stuck in someone’s inbox, you’ll know it can be a bit of a faff.

Zest Arrange allows licensed arranging of deals in investments, bringing investor onboarding, paperwork and execution into one system. It operates under the FSRA’s regulatory framework, giving dealmakers oversight of the entire process from start to finish. That visibility, especially in cross-border deals, is often where confidence either grows… or falls apart.

Zest Escrow, meanwhile, acts as a neutral third party safeguarding transaction funds. Under its FSRA Providing Money Services licence, client money is held in segregated bank accounts in the UAE and is only released once agreed conditions are met. The company says this reduces counterparty risk and strengthens governance, with complete audit trails and real-time tracking of each step.

Zuhair Shamma, Co-founder and CEO of Zest Equity, highlighted how the three services work together. He pointed to a recent transaction where Zest Arrange was used to present an exclusive opportunity to investors, an SPV grouped participants to meet minimum investment thresholds, and Zest Escrow securely received the funds. The aim, he noted, is to deliver private market transactions that are frictionless, secure and compliant, while giving institutional-grade clarity.

Rawan Baddour, Co-founder of Zest Equity, said private markets across the region are experiencing strong growth, supported by what she described as an increasingly innovative regulatory environment. She added that Zest’s platform is designed to fast-track capital movement in safe ways, particularly in cross-border, multi-party transactions where complexity can quickly spiral.

And complexity is costly. Industry benchmarks suggest private market operations can cost exponentially more than public market equivalents. Automation, according to the data cited, could reclaim up to 80% of staff hours currently lost to administrative tasks. For large institutional portfolios, even a 30-basis-point reduction in operational costs on a $5 billion portfolio could translate into $150 million in additional net returns over a typical fund lifecycle. That’s not small change.

I’ve seen founders in the region spend weeks just coordinating lawyers, compliance teams and banks to close a single deal. It drains energy that should be spent building companies. Platforms that genuinely cut through this operational noise are, in my view, long overdue.

To date, Zest Equity reports supporting more than $230 million in executed transactions across over 190 deals, spanning private equity, venture capital, private credit and related asset classes. Its backers include Morgan Stanley, Prosus Ventures, Middle East Venture Partners and Dubai Future District Fund – a line-up that signals serious institutional confidence.

The company is built within the UAE’s regulatory ecosystem, anchored in ADGM while developing its technology and core infrastructure from DIFC. It positions itself as operating to global best-practice standards, with regional fluency. That blend could be spot on, especially as MENA’s private markets mature and demand sharper tools.

On the flip side, execution will be everything. Integrating arranging, SPVs and escrow into one seamless experience is ambitious. But if it works as intended, it could definately ease some of the structural friction that has slowed private deals in the region for years.

For startups and fund managers watching the evolution of financial infrastructure in MENA, this is another sign that the plumbing is catching up with the ambition. And believe it or not, sometimes it’s the boring back-end systems that quietly unlock the biggest leaps forward.

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