Saudi e-commerce startup Aya has raised $7 million (SAR 26 million) in a Series A round led by RAED Ventures, with participation from Nuwa Capital, PIF's Sanabil Investments, Joa Capital and Khwarizmi Ventures.
The round comes roughly a year after the company closed a $1.6 million seed led by Khwarizmi, with RAED, Joa, FENA Holdings and Turki Alrajhi also participating.
Aya was founded in 2024 by Munira Al Kadi (CEO) and Abdulrahman Al Ammar, who both previously worked together at Soum, the Saudi second-hand electronics and used goods marketplace.
The company operates a demand-driven fashion platform that tests over 700 designs per month, validates customer interest within hours and only routes production to its distributed manufacturing network for products that show real engagement.
The model was initially validated in the abaya market, a category the company estimates at $3 billion in Saudi Arabia alone, where supply is fragmented across thousands of small designers and local workshops with no dominant aggregator.
The company has grown to over 60 employees and more than 100,000 customers, claiming 9x year-on-year growth. The new funding will support expansion beyond abayas into broader fashion and lifestyle categories while scaling the production model that underpins the business.
The approach borrows from the Shein playbook of rapid design testing and data-driven production but applies it to a culturally specific market that Shein and other global fast-fashion platforms have not effectively served.
Rather than holding inventory, Aya uses real-time engagement signals to determine what gets manufactured and what does not, reducing the waste and overstock problem that defines traditional fashion retail.
Manufacturing is handled through a distributed network of producers rather than in-house, keeping the company asset-light.
The global modest fashion market was valued at $295 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $375 billion in 2025, according to DHL. Saudi Arabia accounts for a significant share of that market given the scale of domestic demand for abayas, hijabs and contemporary modest wear.
But the sector remains largely offline and fragmented, dominated by small-scale designers selling through Instagram and WhatsApp rather than through structured e-commerce platforms with integrated supply chains.
