Saudi Arabia-based e-commerce Salla, has closed a SAR32 million ($8.5 million) Series A round led by STV, with participation from existing investors Raed Ventures and Vision Ventures.

Founded in 2016 by Nawaf Hariri and Salman Butt, Salla enables SMEs and e-commerce startups to establish their digital stores in Arabic. To date, the startup has processed eight million orders valued at over SAR2 billion ($533 million) in gross merchandise value (GMV) through the 10,000 online stores on its platform. 

The company offers a freemium subscription model with three tiers, offering small businesses the ability to set up their operations free of charge, and upgrade their subscription based on their needs and requirements.

“Our platform offers users inventory management and marketing tools, as well as detailed reports on store performance and automatic invoices for orders, which enables e-commerce merchants to set up, maintain, and increase sales through their stores without any fees or commissions. Furthermore, due to a variety of payment and logistic partnerships, e-commerce store owners who are using Salla do not have to worry about payment or delivery challenges once their store goes live – it is all taken care of,” said Nawaf Hariri, Co-Founder and CEO at Salla.

With the e-commerce market growing rapidly in Saudi Arabia and the wider Mena region, many offline businesses are looking to expand their scope and start offering e-commerce solutions. This can however be a challenge for many as a whole host of aspects need to be taken into account including inventory management, delivery, payments and analytics. 

“We are happy to have STV on board in our journey, as we continue to grow our proposition across the region. We believe that our easy-to-use and business-friendly platform, coupled with our Arabic offering and our flexible subscription plans, sets us apart from our competitors. With STV and our previous investors, we are confident that we will be able to capture an even larger part of the market,” said Salman Butt, co-founder and chief operations officer (COO) at Salla.

The company will use the capital to develop its product and expand its regional footprint.

“We are incredibly excited to partner with Salla. It is our first investment in the space. Our thesis is based on the move towards software-enabled e-commerce, more than the digitisation of traditional commerce. Salla, with its intuitive software and its app store, is not only enabling the creation and launch of new businesses with ease, but is building the backbone of the thriving e-commerce market in the region,” said Ahmad Alshammari, partner at STV.