Saudi startup Syarah raises $2 million for its online car marketplace

Riyadh-based Syarah has raised $2 million as Series A investment in a round led by BECO Capital and joined by Saudi VCs; Raed Ventures and Vision Ventures. BECO Capital and Raed Ventures had invested in the seed round of the startup as well, in 2016.

Founded by Salah Sharef and Fayez Alanazi, Syarah is an online marketplace for both new and users cars with more 17 thousand cars currently listed on their platform. Syarah’s website receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every month making it one the largest website in this category.

Syarah is currently being used by over 400 dealers all across Saudi. The platform also has thousands of individual users who use it to buy and sell cars.

In addition to regular car listings, Syarah also offers different other services as well to make buying cars easier for users, which include car history reports by Mojaz, a service by Saudi company Elm which provides information about used vehicles, from the date of entry into the Kingdom, and facilitating car financing.

The startups claims to finance 400 cars every year through its platform with combined gross value of over 20 million Saudi Riyal.

They plan to use the investment to accelerate their expansion and growth.

“Syarah is on the mission to disrupt and reshape the way cars are bought and sold in the region. We are planning to use the new funding to accelerate our expansion and growth,” said CEO and cofounder Salah.

Saudi is the largest auto market in the Middle East, accounting for an estimated 40% of all vehicles sold in the region, which is why the opportunity is huge for startups like Syarah.

Earlier this year, CarSwitch, a Dubai-based car buying and selling had raised $1 million.