Zolidar was founded in 2023 by Sonali Kothari and Ashish Agrawal to address a widespread succession planning shortfall among small businesses. Kothari, a former COO and CPO at Kiva.org, told the author that “there are 3 million businesses at risk of closure.” The article cites the Exit Planning Institute’s 2023 State of Owner Readiness Report showing 75% of business owners would like to exit within the next 10 years, implying roughly 4.5 million privately held businesses are expected to transition in the coming decade. Zolidar positions its technology as an “Artificial Intelligence-powered easy button” for employee ownership to serve businesses that do not find buyers through traditional M&A.
Zolidar’s platform focuses first on the preparation phase, letting business owners and advisors compare ownership models, model sale versus ownership scenarios, run multi-method valuations, and grade and prioritize options for a specific company. The site is organized into products for business owners and for advisors so professionals can sign up and share resources with clients. Free resources include a directory called The Grid, which lists thousands of professionals, exit planning services, organizations and nonprofits filterable by type, services, location and focus on employee ownership. The company also offers comprehensive succession plans known as Business Max plans and tiered advisor subscriptions with per-seat features for collaboration and valuation reports.
Zolidar has formed a strategic partnership with Project Equity to combine policy, education and advocacy with technology infrastructure. Kothari said the founders studied employee ownership extensively and found that the option is often overlooked rather than niche, in part because of complexity across models such as employee ownership trusts, employee stock ownership plans and co-ops. On its roadmap Zolidar plans to build transact capabilities, including deal-team workflows and financing paths, followed by operate tools for ownership and post-transition culture. The company aims to close both the knowledge gap and the execution gap that have limited scaling of employee ownership and to expand the market beyond the established advisor client base.
