Rewaa, a Saudi inventory management platform for the retail industry, has secured 100 million Saudi riyals ($26.6 million) in a Series A funding round led by Saudi Aramco’s venture capital arm Wa’ed Ventures.
Founded in 2018, the start-up provides retailers with a cloud-based integrated solution that synchronises online and physical store inventory. It also offers point-of-sale and accounting modules for a fully integrated platform.
Co-founder and CEO of Rewaa, Mohammed Alqasir, said: “This investment propels us towards our vision of becoming the optimal technological partner for small and medium-sized businesses in the retail sector.
“By contributing to the industry’s digital transformation through the creation of a globally competitive product, we aim to make a significant impact on retail merchants.”
Other investors that participated in the round included Silicon Valley’s Graphene Ventures, Sadu Capital, Vision Ventures, Khwarizmi Ventures, RZM Investment, Derayah VC, and Abdulrahman Sulaiman Al Rajhi and Sons Investment Company, Wa’ed said in a statement on Monday.
Rewaa has processed more than seven billion riyals in transaction value to date and has served more than 7,000 retailers in Saudi Arabia and abroad, creating more than 250 local jobs, the statement said.
Wa’ed Ventures is a $500 million institutional venture capital firm created by Saudi Aramco to aid the country’s economic diversification and new business growth by investing in high-growth tech start-ups across several sectors.
Established in 2013, it manages a portfolio of about 60 start-ups.
Last month, data platform Magnitt revealed that e-commerce and fintech start-ups dominated venture capital financing in the Mena region during the first half of this year despite global economic headwinds.
Managing director at Wa’ed Ventures, Fahad Alidi, said: “Rewaa’s revolutionary approach to digitising and optimising operational processes based on efficiency and scale-up goals for SMEs perfectly addresses the needs of the typically-scattered retail industry.”
