Muhammad Talha Ansari graduated from the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi in 2012 with a degree in finance, and by the account his university gives, began as a consumer banking intern. He then joined Rocket Internet, the German company that was seeding ecommerce businesses across Asia, and within 18 months was running one of them. Retailo's 2020 launch statement, reported by MENAbytes, called him the youngest chief executive of Foodpanda Pakistan, at 25.
From food delivery he moved to Careem, where he was senior director of operations and, according to the same statement, helped scale the company's last mile delivery business in Saudi Arabia. It was there that he met Wahaj Ahmed and Muhammad Nowkhaiz, the two colleagues with whom he founded Retailo in July 2020.
Retailo went on to raise about $60 million in disclosed funding by late 2023. It is also a case study in how far a map can shrink. The company that started in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE now describes itself as a Saudi business, and Ansari's own position has changed too.
“Careem pushed us into solving problems that we felt had an impact on lives of many.”
From an IBA intern to a chief executive at 25
The IBA lists Ansari as a member of its Class of 2012 and as a former chief executive of Foodpanda and senior director of operations at Careem. Entrepreneur Gulf, in a profile that reads as brand journalism and carries the company's own claims, fills in the earlier steps: business analyst and venture development manager at Rocket Internet, then chief executive and managing director of Foodpanda, then senior director of operations across the Careem network. The rise from intern to chief executive was fast by any measure, and the Retailo statement presents it as the foundation of his later career.
What that taught him is visible in what he later built. Foodpanda and Careem are both businesses about logistics: getting the right thing to the right place at the right time, at a cost the customer will bear.
Three Careem alumni and a map
Ansari did not start alone. His cofounders were Wahaj Ahmed, a former McKinsey consultant who, according to the launch statement, had been the youngest general manager at Careem at 25 and had run its Karachi growth, and Muhammad Nowkhaiz, Careem's former head of strategy. Consultancy Middle East reported that Ahmed left McKinsey in June 2020 to start the company.
The pitch was ambitious from the first day. Retailo said it would serve more than 10 million small retailers across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, starting with grocers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, a market it called a $100 billion opportunity. It launched in Karachi first and then in Riyadh, which became its home.
Selling to the corner shop
Retailo's idea was simple. Small grocers in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the kiryanas and baqalas, bought stock from a chain of wholesalers and distributors, often on credit and often by travelling to a market. Retailo offered an app, a warehouse and a delivery van. The company describes itself as a business to business marketplace and distribution platform that lets small retailers and restaurants order fast moving consumer goods by app for next day delivery.
In the AgFunder interview Ansari described the model in three parts: a marketplace on the retailer's phone, last mile logistics, and credit, which the company was then piloting and which he said no competitor offered. He named Udaan in India as an inspiration, said Retailo had adapted rather than copied it, and said the company's aim was to become the largest digitalising distribution agent. He also floated a further step, integrating with farmers so that they could one day sell to Retailo directly.
“Under our model, retailers don't have to wait for credit, or for markets to open.”
The money followed quickly
A $2.3 million pre seed round announced on 12 October 2020, led by Shorooq Partners of Abu Dhabi with 500 Durian and 92 Ventures, was described by MENAbytes as the largest ever for a Saudi headquartered startup. A $6.7 million seed in May 2021 followed, which AgFunder News reported was co led by Abercross Holdings and Shorooq with participation from AgFunder, Arzan Venture Capital, family offices and angels.
Then came a $36 million Series A in February 2022, which Wamda reported was more than 80 percent equity with venture debt from Nahda Fund. Ansari announced it as chief executive, with Graphene Ventures leading the equity and 500 Global, Agility, Aujan and others joining. By then Retailo said it offered more than 5,000 products for delivery within 24 hours, with buy now, pay later credit lines, to more than 50,000 retailers a month across more than ten cities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan.
In April 2022 it bought DXBUY, a Dubai marketplace for restaurants and cafes, in what Wamda called an acquihire, with terms undisclosed. Forbes Middle East ranked Retailo 17th on its 2022 list of the region's most funded startups, with $45 million raised, and cited about 500 vehicles, 250,000 square feet of warehouse space and more than two million orders by November 2022.
A narrower map
The footprint did not hold. The three founders had built the company in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE at the same time, and it is the Pakistani leg that was cut. Profit by Pakistan Today reported in February 2024 that Retailo had shut its distribution operations in Pakistan in October 2023, in the same wave that closed Jugnu and hit Dastgyr. The paper attributed the failures to the market downturn and a funding squeeze. It gave no Retailo figures and quoted no one from the company.
The $15 million equity round Ansari announced in November 2023, as founder and chief executive, described Retailo only as a Saudi company. By the press release's account, it had thousands of retail partners and restaurants in the kingdom, more than 200 brand partners and 5,000 products, and new money from Yusuf Bin Kanoo Group of Bahrain, Technology Group of Dubai and Majd Digital. The company said the funds would go to new verticals and a deeper presence in Saudi Arabia. In October 2023 Ansari posted on LinkedIn that Dtonic Corporation of South Korea was investing $1.5 million, announced at the Saudi Korean Investment Forum.
An uncertain title
His own position has since changed. His LinkedIn profile now places him in Dubai with the venture builder Stryber, and the aggregator ContactOut lists him as chief executive until September 2024 and a board member thereafter. Neither Retailo nor Ansari has announced the transition publicly, and the magazine could not confirm it directly.
For readers, the safest description is that Ansari led Retailo as chief executive through its pre seed, seed, Series A and 2023 equity rounds. Whether he does so today is not known.
What a shrunken company teaches
Retailo's retreat is the part of the story that deserves attention. Distribution is a business of thin margins, and the combination of credit, delivery and fast growth that attracted investors in 2021 and 2022 was hard to sustain when funding slowed. A company that spreads across three countries can discover that it can afford only one.
Ansari's experience will matter to the next wave of operators in Pakistani ecommerce. He moved faster than most of his generation, raised more than most, and learned what a market contraction does to a plan built on growth. Those lessons are worth more when shared in public than kept in a private network.
