Investcorp Leads in Funding Saudi Arabia’s Tech Start-Up Salla

Investcorp, a leading global alternative investment firm, said that it has led a $130 million pre-IPO investment round in the Makkah-based Salla, a leading SaaS E-Commerce enablement platform in Saudi Arabia.

The investment was made alongside Sanabil Investment, a wholly owned company by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). STV, a regional venture capital investor and an existing shareholder of Salla, also participated in the transaction.

Salla was established in 2016 to promote the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Saudi Arabia by providing SMEs and aspiring entrepreneurs with a proprietary SaaS solution to deliver on their e-commerce ambitions.

Today, Salla enables merchants to tap into a $20 billion e-commerce market expected to grow over 25% year-on-year in the coming years. Since 2020, Salla has enabled $7 billion in e-commerce sales and currently serves over 80 thousand active merchants on the platform.

Founded by Nawaf Hariri and Salman Butt, the Company now has over 160 developers focused on technology and product development. It offers merchants a fully-digitalized and automated solution, allowing them to build their e-commerce website, start selling their products online within a few hours, accept online payments, and ship their products to the end user.

Beyond being fully integrated with online payment solutions and logistics companies, Salla has over 400 applications on its platform supporting its merchants throughout the lifecycle of running an online business.

Investcorp’s investment was made through Investcorp Saudi Pre-IPO Growth Fund LP, a platform targeting equity growth capital investments across a range of companies primarily based in Saudi Arabia with the potential to access the capital markets. Additionally, Robin Mansour, Principal at Investcorp will be joining the Board of Directors of Salla.

Exposure to Growing Markets

The Fund allows investors to gain exposure to growing and market-leading businesses in strategic, high-growth sectors such as business services, transport and logistics, healthcare, and consumer.

Investcorp Head of Emerging Markets Private Equity, Walid Majdalani, said that Saudi Arabia has over a million SMEs, having grown three times over the past five years.

According to him the Kingdom’s transformation agenda will continue to drive innovation and empower the next generation of entrepreneurs, with Salla acting as a key enabler to support the development of new companies in the e-commerce ecosystem.

“We see great interest in the potential of Saudi companies to IPO, especially as scale-ups and unicorns demonstrate local and regional success. Salla has managed to grow exponentially and deliver best-in-class margins. We are excited to be part of their next growth phase and are keen to work with the founder and management team to explore a potential future listing in line with our track record,” he added.

Nawaf Hariri, CEO and Co-Founder of Salla, said that the latest round of funding reflected the investors’ confidence in Salla’s vision and our platform’s potential.

“This investment propels us forward in our ongoing mission to open opportunities and empower individuals, SMEs, and enterprises to start and expand their businesses both within and beyond Saudi Arabia. We are committed to delivering innovative, customer-centric solutions that simplify and enhance the e-commerce experience for our merchants,” Hariri added.