The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Strategic decision · 2017–2025
Nice One's beauty-ecommerce bet: Saudi IPO raises $322M, shares +30% on debut
Nice One bet Saudis would buy beauty online; it listed on Tadawul in Jan 2025, raising ~$322M at a ~$1.07B valuation, and closed its first day up 30%.
Nice One (Nice One Beauty Digital Marketing Co.)
What the business is
Online retailer of cosmetics, fragrances and personal-care products in Saudi Arabia.
How it started
Brothers Omar and Abdulrahman AlOlayan founded Nice One in 2017 as a Saudi beauty and personal-care e-commerce platform, betting a category specialist could beat generalist marketplaces. The company sells over 28,000 products — cosmetics, body care, fragrances and supplements — from more than 1,200 international and local brands (MENAbytes).
What happened
Growth was steady and already profitable: FY2023 revenue was $208.6M with $8.7M net income, and the first nine months of 2024 grew 36% YoY to $186M with net profit more than doubling to $17.6M. In late 2024 Saudi Arabia's Capital Market Authority approved the listing; Masarrah Investment, Al Habib & Sons and Frontier Investment took cornerstone stakes, and the book priced at the top of the SAR 32–35 range.
How it ended up
Nice One listed on Tadawul's Main Market on 2025-01-08, raising about $322M by selling a 30% stake at SAR 35 per share. Shares closed the debut 30% higher at SAR 45.50, the maximum allowed in the first three trading days, and the company continues to trade under ticker 4193.
Background
Brothers Omar and Abdulrahman AlOlayan founded Nice One in 2017 as a Saudi online retailer of cosmetics, fragrances, body care and supplements, betting that a category specialist could win where generalist e-commerce had not. The platform grew to offer more than 28,000 products from over 1,200 international and local brands, alongside its own exclusive lines.
The bet paid off commercially before the IPO: FY2023 revenue reached $208.6M with $8.7M net income, and revenue for the first nine months of 2024 rose 36% year-on-year to $186M while net profit more than doubled to $17.6M. With the Capital Market Authority's approval and cornerstone commitments from Masarrah Investment, Al Habib & Sons and Frontier Investment, Nice One priced its offer at the top of the SAR 32–35 range.
On 8 January 2025 Nice One listed on Tadawul's Main Market, raising about $322 million (SAR 1.2 billion) for a 30% stake at a valuation of roughly $1.07 billion — the first-day move capped at +30% to SAR 45.50 after an institutional tranche that was 139.4 times oversubscribed.
What has to be true
- Nice One proved a beauty category specialist could beat generalist marketplaces in a rising e-commerce market.
- It reached a $1B+ public valuation with modest, real profits — an alternative to the growth-at-all-costs playbook.
- A 139.4x-oversubscribed institutional book showed Gulf capital would pay up for locally rooted consumer tech.
- The AlOlayan brothers took a family-scale retail idea to Saudi Arabia's first billion-dollar beauty listing in eight years.
What can be applied
Own one offline category before going broad: Nice One focused on beauty rather than copying generalists, and rode Saudi's IPO wave to a $1B+ listing on real growth and a 139x-oversubscribed book.
Aftermath
As of its listing week, Nice One trades on Tadawul's Main Market under ticker 4193; the stock closed its debut session at SAR 45.50, up the maximum 30%. The company remains Saudi Arabia's leading online beauty and personal-care retailer, and the IPO — a mix of existing shares and a fresh capital increase — funds expansion of its e-commerce operations and private-label lines.
Sources
- Saudi's Nice One sets IPO price range, targets over $1 billion valuation
- Nice One closes first day on Tadawul up 30%
- MENA IPOs tracker: Nice One listing data
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