First regional internet IPO of 2025
Nice One surges 30 percent on Tadawul debut
Hi everyone,
Welcome to the first Termsheet of 2025.
Kicking off this year with quick thoughts on the first of hopefully many MENA internet IPOs in 2025.
Nice One, the Saudi beauty ecommerce platform, went public today on the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul).
(A detailed research piece is in the works which should be published soon).
It was founded in 2017 by brothers; Omar Alolayan and Abdulrahman Alolayan, and sells makeup, skincare, haircare, fragrances, and home scents, to millions of customers in Saudi and other parts of the region.
Like the previous two Saudi tech/internet IPOs, it also popped on the first day. 30 percent.
The company debuted at the top end of its range, SAR 35, and closed the first trading day at SAR 45.5.
Jahez which listed on NOMU, the parallel Saudi exchange in January 2022, gained 10 percent on its first trading day. (It transitioned to Tadawul (the main exchange) last month).
Rasan surged 68 percent on its Tadawul debut in June 2024).
Nice One’s IPO was heavily oversubscribed. The institutional offering by 139.4 times, and the retail trance by 7.9 times. Jahez and Rasan’s offerings were also significantly oversubscribed.
Jahez saw 38.8 times oversubscription for the institutional offering and 5.9 times for the retail tranche.
Rasan’s institutional offering was oversubscribed by 129.1 times, and the individual investor portion was oversubscribed by 12.8 times.
Nice One has a market cap of $1.4 billion, making it one of the most highly valued internet companies in the region.
(The founder brother-duo collectively owned over 74 percent of the company and sold 22 percent of that in the offering. This means their combined ownership and the proceeds from the sale could bring their net worth to nearly $950 million).
The valuation implies a revenue multiple of 5.6 based on the annualized revenue for the first nine months of 2025, and an earnings multiple of approximately 80, which is fairly high.
But Rasan is also trading with a P/E ratio near 90, with its stock price up 75 percent since debut.
Jahez, though, has seen a 35 percent drop since its IPO.
We’ll have to wait and see if Nice One can sustain this price.
If they are able to do it, it could also drive higher private valuations in the ecommerce/DTC space in the region.
(I’ll share more on that soon).
With Nice One, there are now eight public tech/internet companies in the region.
The combined market cap of public internet companies in MENA reached $13.7 billion in 2024, largely driven by Talabat’s IPO.
Leaving you with a quick chart showing the growth and expansion of public internet companies and their combined market cap.
Thank you for reading and happy new year,
Zubair