Zuvees raises $1.6 million to expand its gifting platform

Published: 2026-06-09T08:23:00.000Z

Gifting might sound like a quaint corner of e-commerce, but Zuvees is betting there is a real tech business inside it. The Dubai headquartered, AI powered gifting platform has raised $1.6 million from IvyCap Ventures to push deeper into the Middle East and global markets.

Gifting might sound like a quaint corner of e-commerce, but Zuvees is betting there is a real technology business hiding inside it. The Dubai headquartered, AI powered gifting platform has raised $1.6 million from IvyCap Ventures as part of an ongoing Series A round, fresh capital it plans to use to push deeper into the Middle East and a string of global markets. The new money brings the company's total funding to roughly $3.3 million, and it is part of a larger Series A target the founders have set at the equivalent of around eight to eleven million dollars. The pitch behind Zuvees is that sending a thoughtful gift across borders is still weirdly difficult, and that artificial intelligence can fix the messy parts. The platform helps people discover, personalise and deliver gifts across many markets, leaning on AI to recommend the right item and curate the experience rather than leaving shoppers to wade through endless product pages. The company likes to frame what it does as a new category it calls gifting 3.0, blending machine driven recommendations, curated premium products and fast fulfilment into a single service aimed at both businesses and individual consumers. Founded in 2025 by Vijaykumar Ghadge and Abhishek Daiya, Zuvees has moved quickly for such a young company. It launched commercial operations in the UAE early on, a step it credits with helping lift its annualised revenue run rate past the three million dollar mark, and it now serves customers across more than 50 countries. The plan for the new capital is fairly specific, namely strengthening its technology stack, sharpening its AI recommendation and personalisation engine, building out supply chain and fulfilment infrastructure, and deepening the customer intelligence and CRM systems that help it understand who is buying what and why. The timing rides a genuine wave. Demand for digital gifting has been climbing as cross border commerce grows and customers increasingly expect personalised experiences rather than generic hampers, which is exactly the gap an AI first platform is trying to fill. The backing from IvyCap, an investor focused on high growth technology ventures, suggests the model is resonating beyond its home base. The regional angle is where this gets interesting for the Middle East specifically. The UAE has positioned itself as a launchpad for consumer technology companies eyeing both Gulf and global expansion, with its affluent, diverse and digitally native population making it an ideal testing ground. Gifting is also culturally significant across the region, woven into holidays, hospitality and business relationships, which gives a platform like Zuvees a natural market to grow into. A startup choosing Dubai as its base while courting customers worldwide captures how the emirate increasingly serves as a bridge between regional demand and international ambition.