Jeddah’s Rwaj banks $1.2m to turn Gulf live-streaming into a bidding war

For anyone tracking where Gulf retail money is heading next, the answer is no longer just malls or mega-deals — it is the phone screen, and it is live. Jeddah-based Rwaj, a social commerce platform where sellers broadcast products in real time and buyers either pay a fixed price or jump into a timed auction, has just closed a $1.2 million (SAR 4.5 million) pre-Seed round. The investors chose to stay unnamed, which is common at this stage in Saudi Arabia, where family offices and angel networks often prefer silence over spotlight. But the signal is loud: live shopping, already a retail juggernaut in China and Southeast Asia, is now being groomed for the Gulf’s hyper-connected, deal-hungry consumer base.

Founded in 2024 by Taher Alblowe, Rwaj is not trying to be another Amazon-style marketplace. It is built for products that come alive on camera — think handmade goods, fashion pieces, electronics, collectibles — where the seller’s pitch and the visual demonstration are half the product. The platform bundles livestreaming, bidding, payments and shipping into one flow, with payments held in escrow until the buyer confirms delivery. That escrow layer matters more than it might seem: in a region where trust in peer-to-peer online transactions is still being built, holding funds until a parcel lands is a quiet but crucial vote for buyer confidence. Buyers can pay via Mada, Apple Pay or cards, which means the startup is already wired into the kingdom’s domestic payment rails and the global card networks — a practical nod to how Saudis actually pay.

What makes Rwaj distinctive is its auction mechanic. This is not merely livestream commerce; it is gamified commerce, where the thrill of a ticking clock and a rival bidder can push a product past its listed price. That hybrid model taps into something older than the internet — the Gulf’s deep familiarity with auctions, from souq haggling to high-stakes camel and car bidding — and repackages it for a generation that scrolls TikTok and Instagram for hours. Alblowe, a young founder from Jeddah, is betting that the region’s merchants, many of whom already sell through Instagram stories or WhatsApp, will migrate to a platform where the entire transaction — from broadcast to bank transfer — happens in one place.

The funding will go toward product development and regional expansion, according to the company. That regional ambition is the bigger story. Saudi Arabia’s retail sector is undergoing a rapid digital shift, propelled by one of the world’s highest smartphone penetration rates, a young population, and government-backed pushes for e-commerce and entrepreneurship under Vision 2030. Live commerce, however, has been slower to take root here than in markets like China, where livestream sales account for a significant slice of total e-commerce. Rwaj is positioning itself early, before the category gets crowded, and its Jeddah base is no accident — the Red Sea city is a commercial hub with a merchant culture that predates the oil era, and it is increasingly challenging Riyadh’s dominance in tech startups.

For the region’s wealth watchers, this pre-Seed round is less about the cheque size and more about what it represents: a shift from copycat e-commerce models toward culturally specific, interactive formats that monetize attention and trust. Investors who back platforms like Rwaj are betting that the Gulf consumer, already accustomed to luxury and speed, will embrace the adrenaline of a live auction from the comfort of a sofa. The escrow protection and integrated shipping also signal a maturing logistics and fintech ecosystem in Saudi Arabia, which has spent the past few years building the infrastructure that startups like this need to scale.

What comes next is the real test. A pre-Seed round proves concept; the next tranche will prove traction. Rwaj must show it can retain sellers, keep buyers returning to new livestreams, and handle the operational chaos of real-time bidding across borders — from Riyadh to Dubai to Cairo. If it succeeds, it could become the template for a new wave of Gulf social commerce, where the auction hammer falls not in a dusty hall but in a glowing feed. For now, the cameras are on, the bids are open, and the region’s retail future is being livestreamed in real time.