GlamBox acquired by Saudi consortium

2018

Four Strategy& alums made the news last winter when their five-year-old startup, e-commerce company GlamBox Middle East, was acquired. Shant Oknayan, Fares Akkad, Christos Mastoras, and Marc Ghobriel had seeded the project with their own funds, then went on to raise over $4 million in venture capital funding from regional investors, including STC Ventures, MBC Ventures, R&R Ventures, and a group of Saudi strategic investors. In this latest event, the Saudi consortium, unnamed in press coverage, bought out the others’ stakes to become a 100 percent owner.

Shant, Fares, Christos, and Marc nurtured the company from an initial idea and a small start-up in Dubai, to a leading online beauty subscription service in the Middle East. Since its inception in 2012, GlamBox had developed partnerships with over 200 international beauty brands and operations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which were supported by a payments, logistics, and fulfilment network in the region.

Shant, who served as GlamBox CEO in 2013 and 2014, said “We are proud of what GlamBox achieved over the past five years – it was a remarkable journey and we are excited for the company’s future growth under the new ownership.”

“This is a testament of what can be achieved with a strong team and operational execution,” added Christos. “As GlamBox joins the growing list of successful MENA startups that have achieved an exit, this is an additional validation of the opportunity in tech and digital in the region.”

Fares said, “We saw an opportunity in e-commerce at a time when the industry was still very nascent in MENA. The space is now booming with the entrance of large players such as Amazon via its acquisition of Souq.com and the digitisation of traditional retail groups.”

Today, Shant and Fares are at Facebook (respectively, group business lead for Facebook and Instagram; and head of media partnerships for Facebook and Instagram in MEA, Turkey, and Pakistan). Christos is founder and managing partner at Illiad Partners, and Marc is VP of IT innovations at SNC - Lavalin.