Vision Venture, a Saudi venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups across the Middle East & North Africa, has exited a part of its stake in local ecommerce enablement firm Salla, netting big 225-times return on its initial investment, it announced in a statement to Postmoney today.
The Saudi VC exited its stake as part of secondaries in Salla’s pre-IPO $130 million round, which was announced today and led by Investcorp and Sanabil Investments.
Vision Ventures was one of the first institutional investors in Salla, investing in company’s seed round in 2018. It also participated in the SaaS startup’s $8.5 million Series A in 2020. The firm did not share details of the financials or size of stake it sold but said that it would continue to support Salla in its noble mission of growing ecommerce in the region through its retained stake in the company.
It is also not immediately clear if the founders or any other investor also sold their stakes as part of the secondaries.
Started in 2016, Salla is a SaaS startup that enables individuals and businesses in the Middle East & North Africa to set up ecommerce websites (mainly in Arabic) and accept online payments. When Vision Ventures first invested in the Makkah-based startup, it had zero revenue, noted a statement by the firm.
It now serves over 80,000 active merchants, who have generated more than $7 billion in GMV through the platform.
Kais Al-Essa, the Founding Partner of Vision Ventures, said, “We’re proud to have played a role in Salla’s remarkable growth story. The success of Salla stands as a powerful testament to the potential of software products originating from Saudi Arabia, catering primarily to the local market, to burgeon into billion-dollar enterprises in the future.”
“Our continued partnership with Salla underscores our commitment to supporting visionary entrepreneurs and driving innovation in the MENA region,” he added.
Founded in 2016 by Kais and Haitham Bu-Aisha, Vision Ventures is one of the oldest Saudi VC firms. Apart from Salla, their other notable investments include cryptocurrency exchange Rain, food delivery platform The Chefz, and meal plans startup Calo. They are an early investor in all these companies.
