Fintech startup Vestd closes growth round led by Foresight Group
This article covers Vestd, a UK fintech startup, which has closed a growth funding round as its first institutional financing after roughly a decade of self-funded growth. The funding will support product expansion, an international commercial push and development of private market infrastructure such as SPVs, affecting startups, founders, employees and investors that rely on cap table and equity administration tools.
Vestd, a UK fintech startup, has closed a growth funding round to accelerate its equity management platform — a notable milestone as the company’s first institutional financing after roughly a decade of self-funded growth. The deal will fund product expansion, international commercial push and moves into private market infrastructure such as SPVs.
Why it matters
Equity administration remains a recurring operational headache for private companies: manual issuance and cap table updates are time-consuming, error prone and create friction for hiring and fundraising. Software that standardises and audits those workflows can cut legal and administrative overhead and help founders and employees realise value sooner.
Vestd’s institutional backing signals investor appetite for tools that professionalise private markets. The company already serves thousands of customers across the UK and India, meaning improvements to enterprise features and international reach could have outsized impact on how smaller private companies manage ownership and employee incentives.
Inside the product
Vestd offers a proprietary SaaS platform that digitises equity management. Its features include employee share scheme administration, cap table management, fundraising documentation and shareholder reporting, plus integrations intended to replace manual spreadsheets and ad hoc legal packs.
The company says its roadmap includes expanded enterprise capabilities and functionality around special purpose vehicles and broader private market infrastructure — areas that matter to high-growth businesses, investors and management teams handling complex transactions or multiple funding rounds.
Who are the investors?
Foresight Group is the lead investor in Vestd’s first institutional round. Foresight is a regional private equity and real assets investment manager; the firm plans to work with Vestd’s leadership to strengthen the management team, accelerate commercial expansion and leverage opportunities across Foresight’s wider portfolio.
In the announcement, Salim Chantler, Investor at Foresight Group, said:
Vestd operates in a highly attractive and underpenetrated market, with a differentiated product that is deeply embedded in customer workflows. From our experience working with growth businesses, manual equity issuance is a recurring pain point for management teams: complex, time-consuming and prone to error. Vestd solves this with a scalable, software-led approach, and we're excited to support the team as they continue to grow, particularly in enterprise and international markets.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Ifty Nasir, Founder & CEO at Vestd, said:
Vestd was founded to make equity inclusion a reality for every private company, so everyone who is key to the success of a business has skin in the game. We've built a platform that simplifies what has traditionally been a complex and manual process, and we're proud to support thousands of companies across the UK and India. Foresight's investment and expertise will help us accelerate our growth, expand our product offering and continue delivering value to the thousands of businesses that use our platform.
The bigger picture
The deal highlights growing interest from fintech investors in tools that shore up private-market infrastructure. As UK and European founders increasingly use equity incentives to attract talent, demand for auditable, compliant cap table and share scheme tooling is rising. There is also a broader trend of consolidation and professionalisation in the private markets tech stack, from fundraising workflows to secondary transactions.
This funding round comes amid a push by many investors to back companies that simplify compliance and scale commercial operations internationally. For Vestd, the next tests will be converting its existing SME footprint into larger enterprise contracts and delivering the SPV and private market features it has announced.
The outcome will be watched across the UK and Europe, where better tooling for equity management could reduce frictions for founders, investors and employees and support deeper private capital markets.
They've invested in Vestd
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