Cap Table Software for MENA Startups: What to Look For

If you search "cap table software" from Riyadh or Dubai, you'll find detailed reviews of Carta, Pulley, Eqvista, and Cake Equity. Each one is built around a Delaware C-corp, a US-based founding team, and an SEC-regulated equity framework.

That's not your company.

Saudi Arabia's startup ecosystem has grown rapidly under Vision 2030. The Kingdom has produced more VC-backed startups in the past four years than in the prior two decades combined. These companies are Saudi-incorporated, raising from regional and international investors, issuing equity under Saudi commercial law, and subject to governance requirements that have no equivalent in the US system.

The cap table tools built for Silicon Valley don't cover what MENA founders need. This is the gap Govy is built to close.

What makes MENA equity management different

General assembly governance is a legal requirement

In Saudi Arabia, companies are required to convene general assemblies — both ordinary and extraordinary — to pass certain resolutions, including changes to equity structure, major company decisions, and board appointments.

An ordinary general assembly requires a quorum and a simple majority of represented shares. An extraordinary general assembly requires a 75% supermajority threshold. Votes are weighted by shareholding — not one member, one vote.

None of the major US cap table tools support this. There is no concept of a shareholder assembly in Carta, Pulley, or Eqvista. The governance stack those tools provide stops at the board level.

For a Saudi company, managing general assembly records outside the cap table system means a separate process, separate documentation, and a separate source of truth. That's where errors accumulate.

ESOP instrument types and contract requirements differ

The standard US equity incentive package — ISO, NSO, restricted stock — doesn't map directly onto MENA legal frameworks. Saudi labor and commercial law recognizes Stock Appreciation Rights (SARs), phantom shares, and other instruments as viable alternatives to direct equity grants, particularly for companies that want to offer economic participation without complex ownership changes.

Each instrument type requires a different grant agreement. The agreement needs to reflect the applicable law, the employee's jurisdiction, and the company's corporate structure. Auto-generated US/Delaware templates create legal exposure when applied to Saudi or UAE employees.

Data sovereignty matters

Founders in the Gulf increasingly care about where company data is stored and processed. For cap table data — which contains detailed ownership records, investor identities, and commitment amounts — the question of where those records live is not academic. Regulation, board expectations, and investor requirements all create pressure to keep sensitive data within reach.

A data room that uploads investor documents to a US-hosted SaaS platform raises different questions than one that serves files on demand from the company's own Google Drive, with no copies made.

What Govy built specifically for MENA founders

Govy supports the specific requirements that US-first tools ignore.

Shareholding-weighted general assembly governance

Govy includes a full general assembly module. A company can convene an ordinary or extraordinary assembly with a specified notice period, meeting date, and agenda of votable resolutions. Shareholders vote for, against, or abstain. Govy computes quorum based on represented shareholding, applies the correct threshold (above 50% for ordinary, at least 75% for extraordinary), and records the outcome. Admins close the assembly with recorded minutes.

This is not an add-on. It's built into the governance layer of the platform alongside board management, because in MENA markets, both are required.

Multi-instrument ESOP with KSA contract generation

Govy's ESOP module supports stock options, RSUs, SARs, and phantom shares. When setting up an incentive program, founders select the instrument type, the applicable jurisdiction (US/Delaware or KSA), the pool size, and default vesting parameters. When a grant is issued to an employee, Govy auto-generates the grant agreement PDF tailored to the instrument type and the selected jurisdiction.

A Saudi company issuing SARs to an engineer in Riyadh gets a grant agreement that reflects KSA law, not a Delaware template with the wrong legal references.

The data room stays in your Drive

Govy's investor data room connects to the company's Google Drive. Files are stored in Drive and served on demand through a secure viewer. Nothing is copied to Govy's servers. The company retains full control of its documents.

Investors access a branded data room with download controls, NDA gating, optional watermarking, and unguessable capability-token share links. Every visit, page view, and time-on-document is tracked — per investor — and surfaced in the fundraising CRM.

For a MENA founder sharing materials with Gulf investors, the data doesn't leave the company's own infrastructure.

Treasury and proof-of-ownership certificates

Govy handles the full treasury lifecycle: repurchasing shares into treasury, reissuing from treasury, retiring shares. Proof-of-ownership certificates are generated as branded PDFs — Carta-style, with the company logo, share class, holder name, ownership percentage, and applicable legal details.

In markets where documentation of ownership is expected alongside the cap table record, this closes a gap that most tools leave open.

The full platform at one price

What Govy ships isn't a cap table tool with adjacent features bolted on. The modules are built to work together:

Cap table — issued equity by stakeholder and share class, ownership percentages, SAFE and convertible note overhang, vesting schedules, an ownership donut and dilution visualization.

ESOP — multi-instrument incentive programs with jurisdiction-aware grant contracts, pool utilization tracking, exercise recording.

Treasury — buy-back lifecycle, reissue, retire, branded ownership certificates.

Fundraising CRM — investor pipeline by stage, commitment tracking, one-click SAFE conversion to cap table, per-investor data room engagement analytics, activity log (every call, email, meeting, stage change timestamped).

Investor data room — Google Drive-connected, demand-served, tracked, watermarked, NDA-gated, capability-token links.

Board governance — board roster, circulated resolutions, voting with configurable thresholds, recorded declarations.

General assembly governance — ordinary and extraordinary assemblies, shareholding-weighted voting, quorum computation, minutes.

E-sign — upload a PDF, place signature anchors, assign signers, draw or type signatures, produce an executed PDF.

Document generation — auto-generated grant agreements and ownership certificates.

One login. $24.99 per month.

What other tools offer for MENA founders

For completeness:

CapQuest is the most direct regional competitor. It covers cap table management and ESOP for MENA companies. It does not include a fundraising CRM, a tracked investor data room, or general assembly governance.

Ledgy is the leading European cap table tool with multi-jurisdiction ESOP support. It doesn't include general assembly management or a fundraising CRM, and its pricing starts at €3,000 per year for the Startup tier.

Carta is the US category leader. It has no MENA-specific jurisdiction support, no general assembly module, and no fundraising CRM. The Build tier starts at approximately $3,000 per year.

Cake Equity serves APAC and ANZ markets well. It has no MENA-specific jurisdiction support or general assembly management.

None of them combine the fundraising CRM, the tracked data room, and the governance depth at this price.

What Govy doesn't do

Govy doesn't provide 409A valuations. It doesn't integrate with accounting or payroll systems. It doesn't handle Saudi government registry integrations (MCI, Tadawul/Edaa) or Nafath/Absher identity verification — those are on the roadmap, not live.

If those integrations are a hard requirement today, factor that into your evaluation. Govy is built for equity management, fundraising, and governance — not the broader Saudi compliance and regulatory stack.

What Arabic/RTL looks like on the roadmap

Govy's Arabic/RTL localization is planned as a final cross-cutting pass. The governance, ESOP, and treasury features built for the Saudi market are live now in English. Arabic-language UI and right-to-left layout will follow. The platform is usable today for Saudi founders who work in English.

For MENA founders: start at govy.tech

Govy is $24.99 per month. No feature gates. No per-stakeholder fees. Cap table, ESOP, treasury, fundraising CRM, investor data room, board and assembly governance, and e-sign — all in.

If you're a founder in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or anywhere else in the MENA region managing equity with tools built for a different market, this is what was built for you: govy.tech