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The company behind AÏZA plans Saudi expansion followed by Kuwait and Qatar, as its online business gains a wider physical retail presence.
Dubai-based Amaani has raised $5 million to take its beauty brand AÏZA further into Gulf retail, with Saudi Arabia first in its expansion plans and Kuwait and Qatar expected to follow in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The Series A round, announced on September 28, was led by BECO Capital, with Homegrown Ventures and Peak XV’s Surge also participating. It brings the company’s total funding to $8 million and will support product development, recruitment and technology alongside its regional rollout.
The development puts two different kinds of expansion together: a young Dubai brand moving beyond its initial market, and a US beauty retailer building a Gulf network through Kuwait’s Alshaya Group. For AÏZA, the next phase is about securing a physical presence in additional countries while continuing to sell online.
From an online launch to retail distribution
Amaani was founded by Shubham Poddar in 2023, and AÏZA launched in December 2024. A $3 million seed round led by Surge followed in September 2025. The latest investment therefore arrives roughly a year after the earlier financing, as the business adds distribution outside its home market.
Poddar previously worked at Sequoia Capital India. In the funding announcement reported by Entrepreneur Middle East, he described the company’s starting point as the gap between the Middle East’s established appetite for international beauty products and the number of brands being developed around the region’s own beauty culture.
That distinction explains the brand’s positioning, rather than establishing a commercial result. AÏZA uses regional ingredients and references in skincare and haircare, while working with laboratories in Korea, Japan and Italy. The business combines a Gulf brand identity with international formulation development.
According to the company, net revenue increased more than ninefold year on year in the first half of 2026. No absolute revenue figure accompanied the announcement. Because the brand began selling only in December 2024, the comparison is with its first months of trading, rather than a mature operating year.
An existing retailer provides the route
AÏZA’s planned Saudi entry is through Ulta Beauty locations at Red Sea Mall in Jeddah and Riyadh Park in Riyadh. The September announcement scheduled these launches for the end of that month, with Kuwait and Qatar expected later in the year.
Its own store directory still described the Riyadh and Jeddah locations as opening soon when checked on October 1. The distinction matters: the announcement establishes the expansion plan, but does not by itself confirm that the products are already on those shelves.
The directory lists an existing Dubai presence through Ulta Beauty and Snob Salon, and says further offline expansion will follow Ulta’s regional openings. This is a distribution strategy built around retail partners, rather than a disclosed programme of company-owned AÏZA shops.
Ulta’s regional network has been taking shape independently. Alshaya confirmed the retailer’s UAE debut at Mall of the Emirates in January 2026, following its entry into Kuwait. The Dubai store brought together makeup, skincare, haircare and fragrance, with both established and emerging brands represented.
For an emerging supplier, that format places its products within a wider beauty assortment. It also means the brand’s rollout and the retailer’s own store-opening calendar are separate events. An Ulta opening should not automatically be read as confirmation that every brand in its network is available there.
Beauty growth is crossing channels
The wider industry context is more complicated than a simple shift from websites to shops. McKinsey’s June 2026 beauty report expects the global market to grow by about 5% annually through 2030, reaching $590 billion.
Its analysis puts e-commerce at 28% of global beauty sales and specialist beauty stores at 18%. It also expects specialist retail to grow at a high-single-digit annual rate in most regions, even as digital channels account for much of the industry’s additional sales.
Those are global findings, not estimates of Kuwait’s market or evidence of AÏZA’s local demand. They nevertheless explain why a brand can pursue retail distribution without abandoning the online channel through which it first reached customers.
The same report describes increasingly fluid shopping across price levels and channels. In that setting, an online presence, a luxury e-commerce listing and a specialist retail counter represent different points of access to the customer. Their commercial contribution cannot be established from store counts alone.
What changes for Gulf buyers
AÏZA already ships from the UAE through Aramex. Its published delivery policy distinguishes UAE orders from Saudi orders and other international destinations, with different delivery windows, free-shipping thresholds and treatment of taxes and duties.
That existing cross-border route is important context for the expansion. A planned Kuwait retail launch does not necessarily mean the brand has never been accessible to someone ordering from Kuwait. It means a local retail presence is being proposed alongside an existing online operation.
For customers, the practical change would be where the products can be found and purchased. For investors, the next set of useful evidence will be country-level sales and the contribution of the newer retail relationships, neither of which was set out in the funding announcement.
The immediate milestones are specific: confirmation of the Saudi listings, followed by dates and locations for the planned Kuwait and Qatar rollout. The $5 million round funds that next stage; the published timetable now points to the final quarter of 2026.
