Salla

Salla is a Saudi Arabian software-as-a-service company that provides e-commerce enablement tools for merchants. Founded in 2016 in Makkah, it began as a tool for automating the process of selling products over social media channels and developed into a no-code, Arabic-first platform on which individuals, small and medium brands and larger enterprises can build an online store, accept online payments, manage inventory, run marketing and ship orders to end customers. Merchants can set up a store within hours or minutes, according to the company.

The platform is integrated with online payment providers and logistics companies and includes proprietary services such as Salla Pay and Salla Shipping. It accepts payments from more than 79 countries, supports more than 40 languages, and connects stores to more than 160 local and international shipping and courier companies. An app store hosts over 400 third-party applications covering the lifecycle of running an online business, and a developer ecosystem extends the platform's functionality. A major platform rebuild, released as Salla 4.0, consolidated payments, shipping and inventory management and reduced the number of steps required for merchant operations.

Salla is led by co-founder and CEO Nawaf Hariri, who co-founded the company with Salman Butt. It has participated in the Saudi Unicorns Program run by Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the National Technology Development Program and the Mohammed bin Salman Foundation (Misk), and investors have publicly discussed a potential future stock market listing.

Founding story

Nawaf Hariri and Salman Butt founded Salla in Makkah in 2016 after observing that Saudi online selling was largely conducted through Instagram and WhatsApp messages, with manual payments, fragmented shipping and customer data handled in screenshots and spreadsheets. Hariri, who had previously worked on ventures including Masareef App and Web Fan Company, first built a tool that collected a buyer's details and passed them to the merchant in a single step. The product evolved into a no-code, Arabic-first store builder; the name Salla means "basket" in Arabic. Early investor scepticism included a meeting where the total Saudi online-store market was dismissed as too small.

Business model

Salla operates a subscription SaaS model alongside transaction- and service-based merchant solutions. It began with a freemium model to lower onboarding friction and now offers four subscription plans — Basic, Plus, Pro and Special — tiered by business size and requirements.

Two primary revenue streams: subscription plans, and merchant solutions comprising shipping solutions, payment solutions, fees from third-party apps and vetted service providers. Management has described the combination as a sustainable model supporting growth and profitability, and an investor cited "best-in-class margins."

Traction

Since 2020 the platform has enabled roughly $7 billion in e-commerce sales (reported as more than SAR 21 billion at an earlier point), with over 80,000 active merchants reported at the time of the 2024 funding round (an earlier count of more than 55,000, and a later report of more than 100,000). Team size has grown to nearly 500 employees, including over 160 developers. New store creation reportedly grew nearly 300% during the 2020 COVID-19 period.

Latest developments

In March 2024 Salla closed a $130 million pre-IPO investment round led by Investcorp through its Investcorp Saudi Pre-IPO Growth Fund LP, with Sanabil Investment and STV participating; Investcorp described it as likely the last round before a planned listing, and Investcorp Principal Robin Mansour joined Salla's board. The company has also built out partnerships with Al Rajhi Bank (Mokafaa loyalty integration across 60,000+ Salla-powered stores), STC Bank, J&T Express, Adjust and Cloudflare.