CapQuest, a Dubai-based company that makes software for managing company ownership and employee share plans, has closed a $1 million pre-seed funding round led by Oraseya Capital and AMKM Family Office. The round was announced on October 20, 2026, in a statement published by Wamda.
The company said the money will go toward product development, more automation in its software and a larger commercial presence as it looks to grow its customer base outside the region. The valuation and the size of each investor’s stake were not disclosed.
What the company does
CapQuest sells an equity management platform that lets startups, scale-ups and established businesses keep their capitalization tables, employee stock ownership plans, vesting schedules, fundraising transactions and shareholder communications in one system. The company pitches it as a replacement for the spreadsheets and manual processes many companies use to track who owns what.
The software tracks how ownership changes as a company raises money, issues employee options and converts financing instruments into shares, FWDStart reported. Its scenario modeling tools let founders calculate how much a proposed funding round would dilute existing shareholders before they sign the documents, while employees and investors can view their own holdings on the platform.
CapQuest charges according to the number of stakeholders a customer manages through the platform, and paying customers get access to all features, according to FWDStart. That means a customer’s bill rises only as it adds investors and employees.
The founders
The company was founded in 2023 by Antoine Bruna, its chief executive, together with Marco Banfi and Anvita Varshney, according to Wamda. Bruna and Banfi previously co-founded Repeat, a restaurant technology business that raised $12 million from 47 investors across three continents and had 63 employees on an equity plan, FWDStart reported. Bruna told the outlet that maintaining spreadsheets, tracking employee entitlements and reporting to investors took up a growing share of time at that company.
The founders spent eight months testing the idea with chief executives and finance chiefs at companies ranging from early-stage startups to larger businesses before building the product, according to FWDStart. CapQuest lists offices at the DIFC Innovation Hub in Dubai and at Station F in Paris on its website.
Funding and investors
Oraseya Capital is the venture capital arm of the Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority. Earlier this month, the authority said it was doubling the size of the fund managed by Oraseya Capital to AED1 billion from AED500 million and raising its maximum investment per company to $6 million from $3 million, according to Dubai Media Office. AMKM Family Office, the round’s other lead investor, has not published details of its participation.
“This funding represents an important milestone for CapQuest and a strong validation of our vision,” Bruna said in the statement published by Wamda. “Equity management remains unnecessarily complex for many companies, particularly as they scale and expand internationally.”
Traction and market
CapQuest says it serves companies in 11 countries, with a focus on the Middle East, Europe and emerging markets. Its customers include Holo, Erad, Avenia and Teylor, according to the statement. The company initially targeted the Middle East and Europe, but referrals and inbound inquiries also brought in customers from Brazil, Singapore and the United States, FWDStart reported. CapQuest has not published revenue or the total number of companies on its platform.
The company is betting that demand for formal equity records will grow as more startups in the region raise successive funding rounds and offer shares to staff, which makes ownership structures harder to track by hand.
What’s next
CapQuest is building a data room with analytics on document sharing, along with more structured investor reporting tools, according to FWDStart. Bruna told the outlet the company is preparing to raise a separate $2 million seed round, with the money mainly aimed at speeding up its commercial expansion. CapQuest said it aims to become a leading platform for equity and investment management that connects companies, shareholders and investors.
This series earlier profiled Nabta Health, the UAE-based preventive women’s health company backed by Phoenix Venture Partners, and Popcorn AI Studio, the Dubai-based AI video platform that raised $1 million in pre-seed funding.
