z9 Capital

Benzion Aboud serves as Founder and Managing Partner. His 20-year operating history — scaling a wireless retail chain to 120 stores for AT&T Wireless and building DISH Network's largest reseller — provides the core sourcing and strategic oversight. The three-person team includes Chief Revenue Officer Wayne Walton and Chief Financial Officer Derrick Moore.

Sourcing appears heavily tied to Benzion Aboud's existing infrastructure. His direct-to-consumer marketing company, QologyDirect, manages over 20 websites serving Fortune 100 partners and generates roughly 10 million calls per year (per the firm). This consumer-acquisition engine, combined with Aboud's personal network in Miami's startup ecosystem, creates an atypical top-of-funnel for a firm writing early-stage checks.

z9 Capital operates as a private equity and venture firm, not a family office. The firm's website presents it as an external manager deploying capital into early-stage startups. While Benzion Aboud's personal liquidity likely underpins a significant portion of the capital base, the entity markets itself to entrepreneurial teams and targets standard institutional-like control and return profiles.

All disclosed activity points to direct, on-balance-sheet investments with a stated preference for majority ownership (80% target). There is no public indication of fund-of-fund commitments or club deals, consistent with a concentrated, deeply involved direct-investing model.

The firm operates across the early-stage spectrum, from seed to expansion-stage companies. Entry checks range from $250,000 to $4 million, directed at startups with a proven business model, bootstrap mentality, and a relatively modest capital requirement over the life of the investment. The articulated exit timeline is three to five years.

The firm's openly stated interest zones — retail, e-commerce, information technology, and technology-enabled operating companies — suggest an underweight or avoidance of capital-intensive sectors such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, deep tech hardware, and traditional heavy industry. Its specific targeting of 'first-generation' technologies implies a preference for market-application risk over core R&D risk.

The underlying wealth originates from founder Benzion Aboud's two-decade entrepreneurial career. He sold a 120-store wireless retail chain to AT&T Wireless in 2002 and subsequently built Elephant Group, which became DISH Network's largest reseller of satellite television before diversifying into cable and home security. The direct-to-consumer marketing company QologyDirect remains an active profit center.