Saudi Retail Tech Startup Raff Raises $1.7M Pre-Seed to Digitize Offline Distribution

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Retail technology startup Raff has raised $1.7 million in a pre-seed funding round to digitize distribution for consumer brands expanding into physical retail.

Vision Ventures led the investment, with participation from 500 Global, Palm VC, Oqal Group, and Salman Butt, co-founder of Saudi e-commerce platform Salla.

Founded in 2024 by Ali Al Qudah and Abdul Kareem Munla, Raff provides software that connects consumer brands directly with brick-and-mortar retailers. The company targets the operational fragmentation brands face when moving from digital storefronts to physical retail spaces.

Digitizing Offline Distribution

While establishing an online storefront requires minimal overhead, entering physical retail introduces complex, separate workflows for onboarding, logistics, inventory management, fulfillment, and payment processing.

Raff centralizes these processes through an end-to-end platform. The software integrates directly with regional point-of-sale and accounting systems to automate vendor management for retailers. For consumer brands, the platform provides a unified dashboard to manage offline distribution across the $300 billion GCC retail sector.

Founding Team and Current Operations

The founders bring domain expertise in both commerce and financial governance. Al Qudah previously built two e-commerce brands, served as an early employee at Salla, and led growth at legal-tech startup Qanoniah. Munla adds more than 20 years of experience in financial transformation, corporate compliance, and business operations.

"We built Raff after experiencing firsthand how difficult it was for growing brands to move beyond online sales," said Ali Al Qudah, Co-Founder and CEO. "Our mission is to simplify that journey and give brands a faster and more efficient way to reach offline customers."

In less than 18 months of operation, Raff has facilitated physical retail connections for more than 900 brands across nine countries, spanning the GCC and the UK.

Capital Deployment

The company will allocate the pre-seed capital toward three primary objectives:

• Expanding operational footprint across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
• Accelerating core product and feature development.
• Building artificial intelligence capabilities into its distribution and inventory software.

As digital-first consumer brands mature, Raff expects the software bridging online commerce and physical retail to become a standard requirement for regional retail expansion.