Amaani, the Dubai based consumer company behind beauty brand AÏZA, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. BECO Capital led the round, with Homegrown Ventures and Peak XV’s Surge participating. The new investment takes Amaani’s total funding to $8 million after a $3 million seed round that Surge led last year.
The company announced the funding on September 28. Amaani will use the capital to expand AÏZA across the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia as the immediate priority. The brand will launch at Ulta Beauty stores at Red Sea Mall in Jeddah and Riyadh Park in Riyadh at the end of September, followed by Kuwait and Qatar in the fourth quarter of 2026. Amaani will also invest the funding in product development, talent and technology infrastructure.
“Three years ago I left Sequoia Capital India with one conviction, that the Middle East had become one of the world’s most sophisticated consumers of global beauty, but too few globally ambitious brands were built around the region’s own beauty culture,” said Shubham Poddar, Founder and CEO of Amaani. “AÏZA was created to change that, with original products inspired by the ingredients, rituals and cultural intelligence of Arabia, held to the formulation standards required to compete anywhere. This funding allows us to deepen what we have built in the UAE, expand across the GCC and begin proving that a brand born here can travel far beyond it.”
Shubham Poddar, Founder and CEO of Amaani
Ninefold revenue growth powers the GCC push
The Series A follows sharp growth in the brand’s home market. Amaani said AÏZA’s net revenue grew more than nine times year on year in the first half of 2026, as the brand expanded from a digital first model into physical retail.
The brand currently sells through its own website, Ounass and Ulta Beauty in the UAE, where it says it ranks among the top 10 brands across more than 300 global and regional brands. BeautyMatter also named AÏZA to its NEXT50, making it the first and only Middle Eastern brand on the annual global list of 50 emerging beauty and wellness companies to watch.
Poddar, a former Sequoia Capital India investor, founded Amaani in Dubai in 2023 and launched AÏZA in December 2024. The brand builds skincare and haircare around Arab ingredients and rituals and develops its formulations with laboratories in Korea, Japan and Italy. Its hero products include the Sukkar Rush lip treatment, the Scent Storm hair mist and the Date Setter brow and lash serum. The formulations are vegan, cruelty free and alcohol free, and meet Clean at Sephora standards.
Saudi Arabia leads the next phase of expansion
“Rather than importing an established global playbook into the Middle East, Shubham and the team are building one from here. AÏZA is showing that a brand can be authentically rooted in the Arab world and still have the ambition and product quality to compete globally,” said Nader Amiri, Co-founder and managing partner at Homegrown Ventures.
Nader Amiri, Co-founder and managing partner at Homegrown Ventures
AÏZA will enter Ulta Beauty stores in Jeddah and Riyadh before the end of September, and the company plans the Kuwait and Qatar launches for the fourth quarter. Research from BeautyMatter, commissioned by Beautyworld Dubai, projects the GCC beauty market to grow from $14.3 billion in 2025 to nearly $21 billion by 2030, with Saudi Arabia accounting for around 40% of regional beauty spending, making it the natural next market for the brand.
Amaani also says technology and AI sit at the centre of its operating model. The company uses data across creative testing, customer analytics, marketing and operations as it moves from online sales into physical retail across several countries.
