Six Years of Building: From Lockdown Ideas to Global Ventures

I usually find LinkedIn's work anniversary prompts unnecessary ("Congrats on your work anniversary"). But six years feels like the right moment to reflect on the successes and challenges of the journey. Thank you for your wishes; I hope we can find ways to collaborate on our adventure.

It all began during the pandemic. Locked down at home in Riyadh, with doomsday talk and oil prices at zero, I gathered the sales and marketing team on Zoom (a ‘new’ tech at the time).

We agreed: if we couldn’t meet clients, we would sell real estate online.

Wasalt: From Lockdown Idea to SAR 200M in Two Weeks

In ten days, we built a digital portal in-house, linked payments, and equipped our sales team with video call capabilities. By April 2020, we launched a Dar Al Arkn project in North Riyadh and, to our shock, sold nearly SAR 200 million online in two weeks. This was the start of Wasalt – now a leading Saudi proptech venture and one of the most successful real estate auction portals launched.

FinTech Growth, Against the Odds

We didn’t stop there. Still in 2020, we acquired a micro-financing business and transformed it into Quara Finance, listed last year on the NOMU financial market in the Kingdom. Today, it offers three key products: a cash loan within 2 minutes, a retail product that lets you buy an iPhone on a five-year plan through partner retailers and a checkout function on leading e-commerce sites with flexible installments.

In 2022, we also listed our home financing company, SHL, on the Saudi main market, Tadawul, which is now expanding to become a full-spectrum lender across financing categories.

DarGlobal: From Startup to London Listing in Two Years

In 2021, as markets started to rebound, we launched DarGlobal. By February 2023, it became the first Saudi startup listed on the London Stock Exchange’s premium segment. Today, valued at $1.5 billion, DarGlobal is driving luxury real estate projects across nine countries with iconic partners like Fendi, Armani, Bentley, Aston Martin, Versace, Elie Saab, W, and Marriott. And in 2022, we began our journey and collaboration with the Trump Organization, launching landmark projects in Muscat, Dubai, and Jeddah, with more planned in Doha and Riyadh.

None of this would have been possible without the dedication, vision, and hard work of our nearly 1,000 colleagues across the group companies. Because of them, and with them, we continue to grow.

Six years down. Many, many more to come.