The Saudi platform that turned sending a gift into financial infrastructure - digital gift cards, prepaid value, loyalty points, and corporate rewards, all in one ecosystem.
In June 2018, a Jeddah startup was profiled as "the Uber of Saudi Arabia's online gifting industry." Resal owned no flower shops, no delivery vans, and no warehouse of chocolates. What it had was software - a system that matched a person's wish to send a gift with the nearest merchant who could fulfil it. "We thought sending a gift is the easiest way to help people stay connected and make them happy," co-founder Hatem Kameli said at the time. The app had spread to 20 Saudi cities and was eyeing the wider Gulf.
That version of Resal is not the company it is today. Around 2021, the founders made a decision most startups only talk about: they set aside their original consumer product and rebuilt the business underneath it. The insight was simple, if uncomfortable. The valuable part of gifting was not the bouquet - it was the plumbing. Issuing a digital gift card, redeeming points, reconciling value across dozens of merchants, keeping it secure - that was the hard, repeatable problem that businesses would pay for.
So Resal turned itself inside out. It moved from B2C delivery to B2B and B2B2C infrastructure: a platform connecting merchants, companies, and individuals through digital prepaid cards, gift cards, loyalty points, and vouchers. Along the way it acquired Boonus, a local loyalty-and-rewards startup, to accelerate the technical build. By 2024, the reinvented Resal had 1.5 million users, more than 1,000 organizations, and a network of over 400 retailers - and it raised a $9 million Series A to push further.
Resal sits between three groups that rarely speak the same language: the merchants who sell, the companies that want to reward people, and the individuals who receive and redeem.
For a bank running a points program, an airline with miles, a telecom with a loyalty tier, or an HR team handing out staff incentives, Resal supplies the rails. It handles the issuance of digital gift cards and prepaid value, the catalog of brands to redeem against, and the back-office reconciliation that keeps everyone honest. For consumers, that same machinery shows up as a wallet: hold points, buy gift cards, send value to a friend, redeem at a favourite store.
The result is a network effect. Every retailer added to the catalog makes the rewards more useful; every organization that plugs in brings more users; every user that redeems gives merchants more reach. That flywheel - not any single app - is the business.
A one-stop e-gift store offering digital prepaid gift cards from 400+ retailers and brands, for individuals and businesses alike.
The corporate rewards and incentive SaaS that lets enterprises reward employees, partners, and customers with digital cards and points.
A consumer app to hold, send, and redeem loyalty points, gift cards, and prepaid value in one place.
Tools for retailers to issue, distribute, and manage digital gift cards and their own loyalty programs.
Enterprise dashboards for managing corporate gifting, loyalty currency, and reward campaigns end to end.
Integration APIs that let retailers, marketplaces, and loyalty companies embed gift-card issuance and rewards natively.
How Resal makes money
Resal is a B2B and B2B2C business. It earns from distribution margins on the gift cards flowing through its catalog, from SaaS and subscription fees for its corporate tools like glee and Resal for Business, and from API, integration, and transaction fees charged to the banks, telecoms, airlines, retailers, and loyalty companies that plug into its rails.
That mix is deliberate. Transactional revenue scales with usage; subscription revenue is recurring and sticky; and the merchant network is the moat - a catalog of 400+ brands that a competitor cannot rebuild overnight.
Digital gifting and rewards is a crowded regional field. Resal competes with players such as YouGotaGift, Giift, and Xoxoday, alongside broader loyalty-tech vendors and prepaid card issuers operating in the GCC. Many of them do one slice well - a gift-card store here, a points engine there.
Resal's argument is coverage. Rather than sell a single feature, it offers the full stack: consumer wallet, merchant issuance, enterprise rewards SaaS, and developer APIs, all drawing on one shared merchant network and one ledger of value. A company can start with employee incentives through glee and later expose the same catalog to its own customers through the API - without switching vendors.
Its second edge is local depth. Resal is Saudi-founded and Saudi-first, built around the Kingdom's retailers, banks, and regulatory context, and explicitly aligned with Vision 2030's push toward a cashless, digital economy. For an enterprise choosing a rewards partner in Riyadh or Jeddah, a platform that already integrates Jarir, Amazon, Noon, and Landmark - and understands the local market - is a shorter path than a global tool retrofitted to the region.
Hatem Kameli and Fouad Alfarhan launch Resal as a digital gifting venture.
Resal runs a flower-and-gift delivery app across 20 Saudi cities, with Gulf expansion in its sights.
Resal shifts to digital prepaid cards, rewards, and loyalty - and acquires loyalty startup Boonus.
Resal's corporate rewards product is named Best Tech Solution Provider at the Incentive Awards.
A consortium of investors backs Resal's round to expand digital rewards across the Kingdom and the GCC.
In August 2024, Resal closed a $9 million Series A round - bringing total funding to roughly $12.3 million.
The round was supported by a consortium including Derayah Ventures Fund, Al-Wafrah AlThanya Investment Company, VentureSouq FinTech Fund, ADDiriyah Asset Management, Nomad Holdings, and Bugshan Investment Group, alongside several family offices and angel investors. Resal said it had doubled its sales growth ahead of the raise, and would use the capital to deepen its rewards infrastructure and expand across the region.
$9,000,000 raised to expand digital rewards in Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Backed by Derayah Ventures, VentureSouq FinTech Fund, Bugshan Investment Group and others.
Cumulative funding to date across seed and Series A rounds.
A founder-led team headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Resal is a digital gifting, rewards, and loyalty platform that lets merchants, businesses, and individuals issue, manage, exchange, and redeem digital gift cards, prepaid cards, loyalty points, and vouchers through one ecosystem.
Resal was founded in 2016 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by Hatem Kameli (Co-Founder & CEO) and Fouad Alfarhan (Co-Founder).
Resal has raised approximately $12.3 million in total, including a $9 million Series A round closed in August 2024 backed by Derayah Ventures, VentureSouq FinTech Fund, Bugshan Investment Group, and others.
More than 1.5 million individuals and over 1,000 organizations across 15+ sectors, including banks, telecoms, airlines, retailers, and government bodies. Retail partners include Jarir, Amazon, Noon, and Landmark Group.
glee is Resal's corporate rewards and incentive SaaS product, letting companies reward employees, partners, and customers with digital gift cards and points. It won Best Tech Solution Provider at the 2021 Incentive Awards in London.