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Bahrain-founded live shopping platform Siin has raised $3 million in total funding in a round led by VentureSouq and Shift Group, with participation from Plus VC, Oqal and regional angel investors including Suhail Al Gossaibi, Mussab Al Hakami and Abdulla Al Hashmi. The company is also backed by Hub71 in Abu Dhabi and InspireU, STC's accelerator programme.
Founded in 2024 by Hesham AlSaati (ex-Delivery Hero), Ahmed Allawi (ex-Tap Payments) and Khaled Albalooshi (ex-Telp), Siin enables users to buy and sell high-value goods through real-time livestreamed and gamified shopping experiences.
The platform has scaled across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman in under a year, facilitating the sale of hundreds of thousands of items across tens of thousands of hours of live streaming.
"Commerce in MENA was never transactional; it's social, interactive, and trust-driven," said Allawi. "From souqs to majalis, we're now rebuilding that experience for a digital-first generation." Suneel Gokhale, general partner at VentureSouq, said what stood out was the team's ability to localise a global trend in a way that feels native to the region, "unlocking a new category of commerce in the GCC with significant scale potential."
Live commerce is already a major retail channel in Asia, where platforms like Douyin (TikTok's Chinese counterpart) and Taobao Live have turned real-time video into a multi-hundred-billion-dollar sales format.
In the GCC, the category is early but attracting investor interest. Trofee, backed by BECO Capital and FJ Labs, is also building a livestream shopping platform for the region's enthusiast communities across multiple categories including collectibles and fashion.
The new funding will support Siin's regional expansion, seller ecosystem growth and platform development as it works to establish itself in a category that does not yet have a dominant regional player.
👉 Independent reporting on the MENA tech and startup ecosystem. Stories like this exist because subscribers fund them. Subscribe now.
