Amaani, the Dubai company behind the skincare and haircare brand AÏZA, has raised a $5 million Series A to take the label into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. The round was led by BECO Capital, with Homegrown Ventures and Peak XV's Surge, and brings Amaani's total funding to $8 million after a $3 million seed round in September 2025, according to Wamda.
AÏZA is scheduled to launch at Ulta Beauty in Red Sea Mall in Jeddah and Riyadh Park in Riyadh at the end of September 2026, with Kuwait and Qatar expected in the fourth quarter. Saudi Arabia is the priority market.
The announcement is a case study in how a regional brand scales in a market where Huda Beauty and Kayali have set the bar.
The company and the round
A Series A is typically the first large round a start-up raises after its seed funding, once it has shown early traction and wants to scale. For Amaani, the money comes at a moment when the brand is less than two years old.
Amaani was founded in Dubai in 2023 by Shubham Poddar. AÏZA launched in December 2024 with skincare and haircare, and BeautyMatter's report of the round calls it Amaani's debut brand.
The company says AÏZA's net revenue rose more than nine-fold year on year in the first half of 2026. In the UAE, it says the brand ranks among the top 10 of more than 300 global and regional brands in its retail network. Both are company claims, and the sources do not give the revenue figures behind them.
AÏZA is sold in the UAE through aiza.co, Ounass and Ulta Beauty. It describes itself as digital-first, using AI and technology for creative testing, customer analytics, performance marketing and operational planning, according to Wamda. It was also named to BeautyMatter's NEXT50 list of emerging beauty and wellness companies, and Wamda reports that it is the first and only Middle Eastern brand on it.
Saudi Arabia first
The expansion plan is sequenced. Ascendants reports that Amaani is concentrating its capital on one market at a time rather than spreading across several, and Saudi Arabia comes first.
The logic is straightforward. Semafor, citing Business of Fashion and Euromonitor, values Saudi Arabia's beauty market at $8.1bn and says it accounts for more than half of beauty sales in the Gulf. The same report says the market is forecast to grow 8.7 per cent a year through 2030. The figure is second-hand, but it explains the order of the plan: a brand that wants regional scale has to be on the shelf in the Kingdom.
Poddar said the Middle East had become one of the world's most sophisticated consumers of global beauty, according to Wamda. The point carries weight in a market where shoppers already compare international and regional brands side by side. The Ascendants article names Huda Beauty, Kayali and The Giving Movement as the competitors.
What is in the bottle
AÏZA's ingredients include dates, black seed, frankincense, rose and bakhoor. YourStory reports that the formulations are developed in laboratories in Korea, Japan and Italy, so the brand pairs regional raw materials with overseas formulation expertise.
Its hero products are the Sukkar Rush lip treatment, the Scent Storm hair mist and the Date Setter brow and lash serum. Sukkar is the Arabic word for sugar, and dates and bakhoor are familiar in households across the Gulf.
According to YourStory, the brand says its formulations are vegan, cruelty-free and alcohol-free and meet the Clean at Sephora standards. These are the brand's own claims, and they have not been independently checked for this report.
What to watch
Three things will show whether the model works. The first is the Saudi opening itself: the two Ulta Beauty stores, in Jeddah and Riyadh, are due to open at the end of September, and their first weeks will indicate how much shopper demand there is for a Dubai label in the Kingdom. The second is the timetable for Kuwait and Qatar in the fourth quarter. The third is whether a company that grew quickly online can hold its rate of growth in physical retail.
Beyond AÏZA, the round fits a pattern visible across Gulf beauty this autumn: Dubai-born brands attracting regional venture money, retail partners opening shelf space for them in neighbouring markets, and founders building on the ingredients and rituals of the region rather than importing a formula from elsewhere. AÏZA's next test is whether its sequence of one market at a time can match the speed of a category that moves quickly.
Sources: Wamda, YourStory, Ascendants, BeautyMatter, Semafor