Egypt
ariika, a leading direct-to-consumer, digital-led home and décor brand, announces the successful conclusion of its Series A equity funding round, secured from Beltone Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Beltone Financial Holding, through acquiring a 20% stake in the company. This strategic investment marks an important milestone for ariika, boosting its growth momentum and accelerating its regional expansion across the Mena region, starting with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia planned for 4Q2023.
ariika is transforming a $20 billion home and décor industry in Mena, growing at a compounded annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of c.10% per annum, by consolidating a fragmented market and creating an inspirational digital-led home destination focusing on superior product assortment, reasonable price points, and unmatched online and offline customer experience.
Since its launch in 2016, ariika has been growing by a CAGR of more than 85% and directly serving more than 800,000 customers worldwide, with the export component contributing to more than 15% of its business and completing more than 3,000 projects with the biggest real estate developers and industry leaders in the region. ariika is uniquely positioned to expand its market share as macro trends continue to favour its business in the long term.
The new capital will be deployed by ariika to finance its geographic expansion into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, further expansion of its omni-channel go-to-market strategy and develop its technological infrastructure and digital design capabilities by capitalising on advanced AR tools.
Khaled Attallah, ariika’s CEO and Co-Founder commented: “With our relentless focus on compelling product, customer service and profitable growth, we continue to outperform our peers, gain market share and distinguish ourselves as one of the fastest growing digital-first, design-led, home brands. We are a value-based brand focusing on our people, customers, quality, and profits. Our focus since day one is to build a sustainable model that is operationally profitable and growing disproportionately with solid unit economics while putting our customers in the center of everything we do.”
Attallah further emphasised: “Our expansion into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia represents a big milestone for us as we are well positioned to replicate our success story in such a strategic market with a significant potential upside for the business and provide great value for our Saudi customers.”
Ali Mokhtar, Beltone Venture Capital’s CEO added: ”We are excited to support ariika and its leadership team to achieve their vision and lead the home and décor sector in the MENA Region. ariika is considered the most promising company within an encouraging sector that commanded strong operational performance over the last couple of years. With ariika’s ambitious expansion plans set in place, the company is well positioned to become the leading supplier of home and décor products to all households in the region.”
White & Case, El-Boraie Law Firm and Van Doorne were legal advisors on the transaction.