Saif Al-Essai Built Two Exits, Then Set Oman's Pre-Seed Record with Sampo AI

In July 2024, two entrepreneurs in Muscat set out to solve a problem that costs e-commerce businesses across the Middle East millions every year: pricing guesswork. Six months later, their startup, Sampo AI, became the first Omani company to raise $750,000 at the pre-seed stage, setting a national record, attracting regional investors, and expanding across seven MENA countries before most startups have found product-market fit.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Saif Al-Essai and Khalifa Manaa co-founded Sampo AI in July 2024, building an AI-powered dynamic pricing SaaS platform for e-commerce businesses across the Middle East.
• In January 2025, the startup closed a $750,000 pre-seed round, the largest pre-seed investment in Oman's history, co-led by Omantel Innovation Labs and Waad VC.
• Saif brings 15-plus years of serial entrepreneurship across advertising, cybersecurity, SaaS, and mental wellness, with two successful exits before Sampo AI.
• Khalifa's international background spans Finland (Turku University, Aalto University) and includes prior ventures in AI-driven product design and e-commerce.
• Sampo AI's platform draws on a proprietary database of 10-plus million regional products and uses behavioral AI to deliver pricing recommendations with predicted profit impact.
• The company now operates across seven countries: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Egypt.

🛒 The Problem They Are Solving

Pricing is one of the highest-leverage decisions any e-commerce business makes, and most get it wrong. Too high, and customers walk away. Too low, and margins evaporate. For businesses operating in the Middle East, the challenge is amplified by fast-moving competitive markets, fragmented data, and limited access to the enterprise-grade pricing tools common in Western markets.

Sampo AI was built to fix that. As Arab Founders reports, the platform analyzes user behavior, purchase patterns, and A/B test results to give e-commerce businesses a continuous, data-driven view of optimal pricing. The company's own tagline sums it up bluntly: "Monitoring tools show you prices. Sampo tells you what to charge."

At the core of the product sits a proprietary database of over 10 million regional products, built to reflect the realities of MENA markets. Competitor prices are tracked and refreshed up to every hour, with product matching accuracy of 99.95 percent, according to the company's own platform description.

👨‍💼 Saif Al-Essai: The Serial Entrepreneur

Saif Al-Essai is the kind of founder who does not come to startups by accident. With a BTEC from The Sheffield College and a Bachelor of Science from The University of Hull, Saif returned to Oman and spent the next 15 years building companies across wildly different sectors: advertising, cybersecurity, SaaS platforms, and mental wellness. By the time he co-founded Sampo AI, he had already notched two exits.

That breadth of experience is visible in how he positions Sampo. It is not just a pricing tool. It is a statement about what Omani startups can build and where they can compete. Saif was featured on Oman FM English in January 2025, shortly after the funding announcement, and spoke at CreativeMornings Muscat in June 2025, one of the city's most respected platforms for entrepreneurial thinking, drawing an audience of 54 at Muscat University.

🌍 Khalifa Manaa: The International Product Builder

Khalifa Manaa's path to Sampo AI ran through Finland. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Turku University of Applied Sciences, then deepened his expertise with Design Thinking studies at Aalto University Executive Education, and earned a Continuous Innovation certification from Lean Startup pioneer Ash Maurya's Lean Stack program.

Before Sampo AI, Khalifa had already shaped multiple ventures. He co-founded RideHoop, contributing to customer experience and product development. He also founded Shapr, where he applied data science and AI to enhance revenue streams. Earlier, he served as Digital Business Designer at Qvik (a Finnish digital consultancy) and as Product and Venture Consultant at Next Level. His advisory credits include Savimbo, a social enterprise focused on fair-trade climate products, and Layette Oy, an award-winning pregnancy app.

As Sampo AI's Chief People Officer (per ZoomInfo), Khalifa brings a product-first, human-centered lens that complements Saif's commercial instincts. His LinkedIn profile reflects a founder who has operated at the intersection of design thinking, lean methodology, and AI-driven product development across two continents.

💰 The Record-Breaking Round

In January 2025, just six months after founding Sampo AI, the duo closed a $750,000 pre-seed round. As Wamda reported, the round was co-led by Omantel Innovation Labs, the innovation arm of Oman's national telecom operator, and Waad VC, with additional participation from Hexnture and a group of Saudi angel investors.

The size and speed of this raise matter beyond the headline number. As Middle East AI News and WAYA Media both noted, this was the largest pre-seed round ever closed by an Omani startup. For an ecosystem still building its track record, Sampo AI's raise sent a clear signal: Muscat-based AI companies can attract serious regional capital.

🏗 Inside the Product

Sampo AI's platform is built around four core capabilities. First, competitor monitoring: automatic product matching with 99.95 percent accuracy, with prices tracked and refreshed up to every hour. Second, AI-driven pricing recommendations that analyze hundreds of signals including competitor prices, demand, inventory levels, and seasonality, and present guidance in plain language with predicted profit impact. Third, automated dynamic repricing rules that run 24/7, with margin protection floors set per SKU. And fourth, market intelligence dashboards that surface competitive patterns, price follower behavior, and category-level trends.

As the company's own press release notes, Sampo also offers a "Golden Guarantee": a 14-day free trial plus a full refund if clients are unsatisfied within 30 days post-trial. That kind of confidence-in-product commercial positioning is rare at the pre-seed stage.

🗺 From Muscat to Seven Markets

By the time Saif spoke at CreativeMornings Muscat in June 2025, Sampo AI was no longer just an Omani story. According to the company's platform page, Sampo now operates across seven countries: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Egypt. The expansion from a Muscat founding to a seven-market MENA footprint in under a year reflects both the regional applicability of the product and the team's ability to execute rapidly on the capital raised.

🇴🇲 Vision 2040 and the Ecosystem Signal

Sampo AI's story fits squarely within Oman Vision 2040's push to diversify the economy through knowledge industries and technology. The involvement of Omantel Innovation Labs as a lead investor is notable: it reflects a deliberate effort by Oman's state-linked institutions to catalyze venture-backable startups, not just support small businesses. As the Rasmal analysis noted, the Omani government has raised the priority of building its own AI ecosystem, and Sampo AI's raise is one of the clearest early data points of that strategy bearing fruit.

🔗 Follow Their Journey

• Saif Al-Essai on LinkedIn
• Khalifa Manaa on LinkedIn
• Sampo AI: getsampo.com

🌟 Why This Matters for Oman

Saif Al-Essai and Khalifa Manaa are not just building a startup. They are demonstrating what Oman's next generation of tech company can look like: a deep-tech product company with regional ambition, backed by serious capital, founded by Omanis who have operated internationally and brought those skills home. Saif's two exits before the age of 40 show that the talent exists. Khalifa's Finnish education and pan-European product career show that the world-class training exists. Sampo AI, operating in seven MENA countries less than a year after founding, shows that the execution capability exists. For every aspiring founder in Muscat watching from the sidelines, that combination is a proof of concept for what is possible.