Ascentium, a business services group headquartered in Singapore, acquired Clara, a UAE-based provider of company formation, governance and compliance services, the companies announced on February 12, 2026. The price was not disclosed.
Clara describes itself as the largest licensed corporate service provider in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), one of the UAE's two financial free zones that operate under common law. It also works in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the other.
Clara will continue to operate in both ADGM and DIFC under its existing regulatory licences. The company is led by managing director Kathryn Burke. Ascentium said the deal gives Clara access to its global platform, a wider range of services and investment capacity.
What Clara built
Clara started as a legal-tech company that set out to automate the legal work of starting and running a start-up. In a 2020 press release, the company called its product a legal operating system for start-ups, covering company formation, drafting agreements, building cap tables, organising data rooms and teaching founders legal concepts. At that time it was headquartered in London and led by CEO and co-founder Patrick Rogers. The founding team also included Lee McMahon, Hannah McKinlay, Ahmed Arif and Arthur Guest.
In July 2020 Clara bought Foundra Corporate Services, an ADGM company formation provider set up in 2018 that had formed more than 400 companies, along with its Cayman Islands affiliate. Both were rebranded as Clara Formations, which gave Clara the right to incorporate companies in ADGM and the Cayman Islands.
Today Clara runs a proprietary digital platform for incorporating and managing ADGM and DIFC entities and manages about 2,000 companies in the two free zones. Its clients include start-ups, small and medium-sized businesses, law firms, venture capital firms, investors, accelerators and government-related entities.
“ADGM is an important addition to Ascentium's global platform, and Clara is the market leader.”
Ties to the Abu Dhabi start-up scene
Clara built much of its business on the region's start-up ecosystem. In July 2022 it signed a partnership with Hub71, Abu Dhabi's technology start-up hub, under which Hub71 paid the cost of incorporating its start-ups' ADGM companies through Clara, and Hub71 companies received lower prices on Clara's other products. Rogers said at the time that more than half of Hub71's companies were already Clara customers.
The 2020 press release said Clara had raised $3 million in seed funding from institutional investors including 500 Startups and Techstars. Later funding, if any, was not reported in the sources reviewed, and Wamda dated the company's founding to 2018.
Why Ascentium is buying
Ascentium provides corporate services, accounting, fund administration, HR and payroll, and fiduciary and trust services. It has more than 2,500 staff in 45 cities across 23 markets and serves more than 60,000 client entities, according to the deal announcement.
The group said it looks for partnerships with regulated businesses in strategic jurisdictions. Clara gives it a licensed position in two of the Middle East's main financial centres and strengthens its presence in regulated financial hubs.
Lennard Yong, Ascentium's founding management member and group chief executive, pointed to Clara's regulatory standing, client relationships and technology. Burke said Ascentium had built a platform where people lead and technology enables, and that the combination would help clients handle cross-border regulation while giving Clara more scale.
What happens to clients
Neither company announced changes to Clara's services, brand or team. Clients in ADGM and DIFC continue to be served by Clara under its existing licences, with access to Ascentium's services in other markets.
The deal fits Ascentium's stated strategy of pursuing partnerships with regulated, values-aligned businesses in strategic jurisdictions. Burke said the combination would give Clara the scale and reach to grow its expertise, while Yong said ADGM was an important addition to the group's global platform.
