UAE's Epic Markets raises $10 million pre-Seed from Karatage

Epic Markets, a UAE-based fintech startup, has raised $10 million in a pre-Seed funding round. Karatage was the sole investor. The round is Epic Markets' first disclosed funding, and it makes Karatage the company's first institutional backer. There is no previous public funding history to compare it against, which puts the focus squarely on what the startup does next.

Epic Markets was founded in 2026 by Kevin Kimmel and Brian Seegers. The company is developing a multi-asset brokerage platform aimed at retail investors. It wants to give those investors institutional-grade trade execution, a category of service that has traditionally belonged to professional funds and large institutions. The company's stated goal is to bridge the gap between institutional and retail trading services, and to deliver a step change in execution quality. That is not a minor feature. Execution quality is the difference between the price a trader sees and the price a trader gets.

The platform is designed to support trading across multiple asset classes. That design comes with real complexity. Different asset classes trade on different venues, move through different settlement systems and carry different liquidity profiles. The interface has to hide that complexity so a retail investor can move between markets without losing execution quality. If the technology underneath cannot handle every asset class at the same standard, the platform will struggle to keep its promise.

The funding will support product development and platform expansion. The two priorities are connected. A brokerage platform only works if the underlying execution engine is solid, and it only grows if investors can trade a wide and useful set of assets on top of that engine. The pre-Seed money gives Epic Markets the resources to work on both at once. That is the practical test of the round: whether the product team can turn a $10 million pre-Seed into a platform that feels simple to use and is not simple to build.

The structure of the round makes it notable. At the pre-seed stage, companies are usually still defining the product. Ten million dollars is a large amount for such a round, and Karatage supplied all of it rather than sharing the deal with other funds. That is a concentrated bet on the founding team and the product thesis. It also gives the startup a longer runway to build before it has to raise again, and it means Karatage has no partner investor to absorb the risk with it.

The timing matters too. Retail investing is expanding globally, and individual traders are increasingly comparing their experience with what institutions get. That has created an opening for platforms that improve the quality of execution. The same opening has attracted established brokers and other new entrants. The advantage for Epic Markets is that its platform is being built for this moment rather than adapted to it. The risk is that a new entrant has less history to point to when markets are volatile and execution is tested.

Karatage is Epic Markets' first institutional backer. Its decision to write the full pre-Seed check puts the firm's name behind that promise. The capital is in place. The product now has to prove the premise.