Zest Equity Secures ADGM Financial Services Permission, Expanding Its Global Private-Market Infrastructure
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, December 4th, 2025, FinanceWire
Zest Equity, a digital transactional infrastructure company, announced today that it has received a Financial Services Permission (FSP) from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of ADGM. Headquartered in the UAE, the company enables regional and global clients to digitally transact in private market deals, hold funds through regulated escrow in relation to the deals, facilitating private capital flows through regulated channels.
The FSP marks another step in Zest Equity’s roadmap and global strategy to build an infrastructure layer that connects capital across emerging and developed markets. Built to digitize capital movement end-to-end, Zest Equity provides tools that streamline the execution of private-market transactions, from digital SPV setup to its newly regulated digital-first escrow services for safeguarding funds and the distribution rails that support private-market investment flows. Zest Equity’s proprietary system replaces fragmented, manual workflows with a unified digital layer, allowing capital to move efficiently.
“Private markets have long been held back by manual, fragmented processes that create unnecessary friction and fall short of what today’s transactions need,” said Zuhair Shamma, Co-founder & CEO of Zest Equity. “Our mission is to bring private markets into the future, making them standardized, automated, and accessible to anyone ready to transact.
“Through securing our FSP, we are enabling the shift toward a unified private market infrastructure, putting in place the digital rails that will support the next generation of transactions and move capital with the confidence and clarity that modern finance demands.”
“The FSP marks an important step in how we deliver infrastructure for institutional capital flows,” said Rawan Baddour, Co-founder of Zest Equity. “It enables us to integrate regulated escrow and distribution pathways with the existing digital execution tools. This is the first of several regulatory milestones as we expand our capabilities to digitise private-market transactions end to end and solve the most pressing challenges that those leading private market investments face when executing their transactions.”
To date, Zest Equity has digitised the execution process of more than USD 210 million across over 160 private-market transactions, supported by global and regional investors including Prosus Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), and the Dubai Future District Fund (DFDF). The FSP marks an important milestone in Zest Equity’s roadmap to extend its institutional-grade infrastructure to additional markets, providing clients with the tools and regulated services needed to move capital efficiently and with confidence across jurisdictions.
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is an international financial centre in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, recognised for its English common-law framework and globally benchmarked regulatory standards. Zest Equity’s FSP license reflects ADGM’s growing role as a hub for financial innovation and institutional capital flows.
About Zest Equity
Zest Equity is a digital transactional infrastructure company powering private-market transactions. Built in the UAE and anchored within ADGM’s regulatory framework, Zest Equity develops its technology and product in the DIFC, where the company established its foundation and continues to build the core infrastructure behind its platform. Zest Equity operates to global best-practice standards while providing regional fluency and institutional execution.
The company offers regulated escrow and distribution services under ADGM’s framework, along with a layer of digital execution capabilities for SPV formation and deal workflow management that simplify, safeguard, and scale private-market transactions. Its infrastructure brings all participants into a single, transparent, and repeatable workflow that unifies compliance, governance, documentation, and fund flows, enabling capital to move seamlessly and with confidence across jurisdictions. To learn more, users can visit https://www.zestequity.com/ .
Contact
Loredana MateiJENSEN MATTHEWS PR
loredana@jensenmatthews.com
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