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Early Adoption Discount

  • 1st.

    First Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 10 % discount

    $0 share value remaining

    $0.9 Price/Share

  • 2nd.

    Second Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 5 % discount

    $0 share value remaining

    $0.95 Price/Share

  • 3rd.

    Third Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 0 % discount

    - share value remaining

    $1 Price/Share

  • 4th.

    Fourth Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 0 % discount

    - share value remaining

    $1 Price/Share

Minimum investment size 500 500

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Available for investment $187,526
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Note: This proposal accepts overfunding; remember it is optional whether the proposal owner decides to accept any overfunding commitments.
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Why The Saffron Souk?

Why invest?

We have all walked into a market either locally or whilst traveling and wondered if the vendors are honest and the products are of a good quality. What if you were to walk into a local bazaar in the Middle East and knew with certainty that all of the products in each of the shops were of the best quality and that if yo ... see more.

Notable Press

The National (April 2020) : https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/uae-artisans-switch-to-online-marketplaces-to-sell-their-wares-amid-covid-19-1.1005350 < ...see more.

Why Invest?
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The Team

Bassel Bou Nassif
Chief Executive Officer
Dieter Hovorka
Advisor
Shaan Qasim
Founder & Board Member
Meet the Team

More than just a marketplace; purveyors of treasures from local makers and merchants

Watch the video Download the documents
  • Presence:
Read the full risk warning

Why The Saffron Souk?

We have all walked into a market either locally or whilst traveling and wondered if the vendors are honest and the products are of a good quality. What if you were to walk into a local bazaar in the Middle East and knew with certainty that all of the products in each of the shops were of the best quality and that if you gave them a credit card, your transaction would be safe and protected.

The Saffron Souk is the digital version of this experience through an innovative, technology-based platform that, as of January 31st 2021, has more than 18k registered members, including over 500 registered sellers. Our platform empowers independent brands and Micro and Small Enterprise - MSMEs by allowing them to focus on their craft and passion as we take care of all of the transactional and marketing support. In time, we expect that our ability to support regional independent brands and MSMEs will grow and give them access to an even bigger audience. We know our community of sellers to ensure that our customers are getting the products they expect.

We are the Etsy of the Middle East. By visiting saffronsouk.com you can take advantage of all of the creative goodness the region has to offer whilst supporting small businesses in the process.

Notable Press

The National (April 2020) : https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/uae-artisans-switch-to-online-marketplaces-to-sell-their-wares-amid-covid-19-1.1005350

Baby and Child (April 2020) : https://babyandchild.ae/for-mums/all-about-you/article/1641/ramadan-in-the-time-of-covid-19-some-lockdown-measures-are-a-blessing-in-disguise

Cosmopolitan (Nov 2020): https://www.cosmopolitanme.com/life/the-best-black-friday-deals-coming-up-this-month

Gulf News (August 2020): https://gulfnews.com/parenting/mums-dads/uae-12-must-haves-for-going-back-to-school-in-a-pandemic-1.1598284538433

Harpers Bazaar (June 2020) : https://www.harpersbazaararabia.com/gallery/7-beauty-products-scented-with-hints-of-oud?page=7&img=7

The National (Dec 2020) : https://www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/fashion/gifts-you-won-t-find-in-the-malls-new-websites-help-uae-shoppers-support-home-grown-businesses-1.1120988

The Business

The Challenge

There are more than 19 Mil micro and small businesses in the Middle East & North Africa. Most of these are merchants who sell unique products, makers who produce hand-crafted goods or manufacturers of small batch items, all of whom have limited access to other markets and the rapidly growing ecommerce market in the MENA region.

The Solution

The Saffron Souk is an online platform where consumers around the world can discover and buy from micro & small businesses in the MENA region that sell unique and authentic products. 

We have seen that for this segment of vendors, we are a far more effective business model than existing marketplaces.


The Facts

- More than 25K visitors per month and growing. With 25% returning visitors. 66% generated organically.
- The only Arabic online marketplace in its category.
- Organically growing seller's base with more than 400 active sellers
- More than 3600 unique products with more than 10% new products every month
- Over 17K registered user profiles growing organically
- Supply contract with Bloomingdales Middle East. The only marketplace in the region that wholesales to businesses.

Fact file

Proposal ID: 10798
Closing date: 1 Jul 2021
Category: Online/Internet
Tags: B2B, B2B Marketplace, B2C, Break even, Comparison, Crowd Funding, Crowd Investing, E-Commerce, Growth, Growth Companies, Individual Investors, marketplace, Nominee structure, Operating, Platform, Profitable, Revenue generating, Seed, Social impact, Tech, UAE
Stage: completed and closed
location: United Arab Emirates

We are the Etsy of the Middle East. By visiting saffronsouk.com you can take advantage of all of the creative goodness the region has to offer whilst supporting small businesses in the process.

- We are aggregators of hundreds of curated micro and small businesses in UAE and Middle East which allows global buyers, both individual and corporate, to have product discovery for non main-stream and hard to find products from the Mena region.
- We facilitate transactions; we do not compete with our sellers, hold inventory or sell goods; products shipped directly from sellers.
- Our ecommerce platform supports English and Arabic for both sellers and buyers, in a region with a 422 Mil Arabic speaking population and where the majority prefer to browse content in Arabic.
- We have a successful operating business model in UAE with 50% month on month growth in GMV; we need to scale to grow financially.
- We anticipate a possible sale over the next 3-5 years, which may yield a high multiple exit to any shareholders present at the time.

Our next steps are to:
- expand our sellers base in GCC & Levant;
- further optimize our sellers and buyers network and service offerings.

According to IFC Advisory Services, there are between 19-22 million MSMEs in the MENA region and 2.3 million in Turkey. Most of these are either boutique stores selling hand-picked items, hand crafted products, or small batch manufacturers producing unique items. However all of these businesses have limited access to cross border buyers - individuals or corporate buyers - and the rapidly growing ecommerce space.

- Converging macroeconomic trends
In the current converging macroeconomic trends in online and mobile commerce, employment, consumption & manufacturing, more people are turning to their creative passions, working for themselves and defining success on their own terms with more buyers are seeking a diverse, global marketplace of goods that have historically been found only in highly fragmented markets.

- Changing consumer dynamics
Consumer dynamics are changing; many consumers want to purchase goods that are unique reflecting their personality and style and not mass-produced, generic products.

- 19-23 mil MSMEs* in MENA
The majority of enterprises in MENA are MSMEs; these are estimated at 19-23 mil (formal and informal) in number and comprise 80-90% of total businesses in most countries in the region.

The funds we raise will be used to fund our operations, achieve the forecasted growth and become the key player in the MENA & Turkey independent brands online marketplace space.

The key use of these proceeds (as % of total investment) is:

43% - Marketing and public relations
19% - Operation - Customer service, sellers success and inside corporate sales and sellers recruiters.
15% - Infrastructure and product development
14% - Management , administration, accounting and legal
9% - Capital expenses (office set up)

We anticipate a possible sale over the next 5-7 years, which may yield a high
multiple exit for any shareholders present at the time. This is based on the
fact that as a regional company based in MENA we believe we have a
substantial competitive advantage because of our understanding of, and focus
on, the local markets in the region. This is something that international
players lack which drives their M&A activity and inorganic growth.

Public documents

The Investors

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Early Adoption Discount

  • 1st.

    First Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 10 % discount

    $0 share value remaining

  • 2nd.

    Second Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 5 % discount

    $0 share value remaining

  • 3rd.

    Third Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 0 % discount

    - share value remaining

  • 4th.

    Fourth Tranche

    Shares will be sold at a 0 % discount

    - share value remaining


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Financials

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The Team

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Q&A

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