Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem is beginning to thrive as new and increasingly larger investments into young Saudi companies continue to mount.
The latest is Saudi B2B ecommerce marketplace Sary, which announced that it has raised $30.5 million in a Series B round led by VentureSouq.y. The round was also joined by Silicon Valley’s Rocketship.vc, STV, and returning investors Raed Ventures, MSA Capital, and Derayah VC. It takes Sary’s total investment raised so far to over $36 million, making it one of the best funded startups in Saudi and the best B2B ecommerce marketplace in the region, according to MenaBytes.
Sary’s announcement comes almost simultaneously as a record announcement from Saudi startup Retailo, which closed a $6.7 million seed investment round on Thursday, the largest seed capital raised by a Saudi startup.
These announcements pile on to a record first quarter for Saudi startups, which raised $76 million in the first quarter of 2021, a 137.5 percent increase on the previous quarter’s fundraising total of $32 million.
Last month, a 9-month old Saudi startup, Tamara, raised $110 million in a Series A round led by leading global payment processor Checkout.com. And, Gazal, a Saudi Arabia-based micromobility startup, raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by angel investors and family offices.
The increasing number of venture investments in new, homegrown Saudi companies is indicative that efforts to transform the Kingdom’s economy away from oil are starting to pay off.
“The government’s push towards entrepreneurship is evident in the number of startups that have emerged in Saudi Arabia over the past few years. We are seeing more deal flow in the country and larger ticket sizes,” Triska Hamid, editorial director of Wamda, told Arab News in April.
Meanwhile, some other non-Saudi based startups are raising money to expand in the Kingdom.
“The year has started with a positive sign for startups and VCs. Lots of international investors are looking into the Saudi market, so lots of prosperity I think is coming on this year and we are going to witness a good number of the deals as well,” Amal Dokhan, who was one of the Kingdom’s first female venture capitalists (VCs) and recently joined Californian venture capital firm 500 Startups as a partner, told Arab News last month.
