KSA-Born EdenMountain Secures Qatar-Based GrowthX Capital As Lead Investor

EdenMountain, a Saudi Arabia-born startup that has built the world's first marketplace for enterprise non-operating rights (ENORs®), has secured Qatar-based GrowthX Capital for Investment as its lead institutional investor.

While details of the investment were undisclosed, the new capital is set to support EdenMountain's expansion into new markets, further development of its platform, scaling of its marketing efforts, and growth of its team.

An ENOR is an enterprise non-operating right associated with a specific business in a particular territory. Positioned by EdenMountain as a new asset class, ENORs can now be bought and sold exclusively on its platform, which was founded by Hossam Shobokshi, Owais AlZahed, and Aljohara AlArnous in Saudi Arabia in 2023 to connect brands seeking alternative growth capital with investors interested in acquiring exclusive territorial rights. Inc. Arabia spoke to all three co-founders to learn more about the origins of EdenMountain, the opportunity behind ENORs, and what it takes to build a business around a new asset class.

Shobokshi, for starters, revealed that the EdenMountain concept grew out of an attempt he had made to bring a fast-growing international consumer brand to Saudi Arabia during the early stages of its global expansion. But despite interest in the market, the company was not ready to enter it, leaving neither side with a way to capture the commercial value of the opportunity before the expansion actually took place. “Over the years, the same pattern emerged across businesses in different industries,” Shobokshi said. “Companies owned valuable rights to markets they had no immediate plans to enter; yet, the only ways to unlock that value were through franchising, selling equity, or mergers and acquisitions, all of which require significant long-term commitments. That insight led to the creation of ENORs, and, ultimately, to EdenMountain, the world's first marketplace for non-operating rights. Our mission is building global infrastructure for a new asset class, and enabling global business expansion.”

At the heart of EdenMountain's model is the idea that businesses hold potentially valuable rights to markets they have yet to enter. “Think about a successful restaurant brand in Riyadh that receives interest from operators in Doha, London, or Kuala Lumpur,” Al Zahed said. “Those expansion rights have real value, even if the company has no intention of entering those markets today. Until now, however, there was no structured way to realize that value. Traditional financing wasn't designed to solve this problem. Equity financing dilutes ownership. Debt creates repayment obligations. Franchising often comes with long-term operational commitments, while a merger and acquisition is a permanent transaction.”

It is against these limitations that Al Zahed framed the case for EdenMountain's offering. “ENORs solve a completely different challenge,” he explained. “They enable businesses to unlock the value of future expansion opportunities while retaining ownership of the company and preserving strategic flexibility. When we describe ENORs as a new asset class, we're not referring to a traditional financial asset class like equities or bonds. Rather, they represent a new category of contractual rights that can be owned by investors, giving them exposure to the value of business expansion opportunities that were previously inaccessible. It's a completely new way of thinking about expansion not as something that only happens operationally, but as an asset that can be created, owned, and traded.”

Beyond the concept itself, building a market around such a proposition was central to EdenMountain attracting GrowthX as the company's lead institutional investor. “I believe GrowthX saw that we had gone beyond an idea we had built the infrastructure,” AlArnous told Inc. Arabia. “Creating an entirely new category requires much more than a compelling concept. It demands legal frameworks, standardized documentation, governance structures, marketplace technology, and early market validation. We focused on building those foundations first. Today, we've onboarded dozens of brands, issued hundreds of ENORs, built a growing community of buyers, and brought millions of dollars' worth of ENORs onto the platform. That demonstrated there was genuine demand for this new model. GrowthX often says, ‘We invest in founders, not just ideas,’ and I think that philosophy aligns perfectly with our journey. While the concept is innovative, what ultimately matters is the team's ability to execute.”

The experience of building EdenMountain has also informed AlArnous's perspective on what it takes to build a business around an entirely new category. “The biggest lesson is to start with the problem, not the solution,” she said. “Many founders fall in love with an idea before validating whether the underlying problem is significant enough to solve. If you're solving a real problem that people genuinely experience, you'll always have a much stronger foundation for building something meaningful. Building a new category is also fundamentally different from building a product. When you're creating something people have never seen before, your biggest challenge isn't competition; it's understanding. You have to invest as much in education as you do in product development, because people need a framework before they can appreciate the value of what you're building.”

“Another important lesson is to focus on infrastructure before awareness,” AlArnous continued. “Trust doesn't come from marketing alone. It comes from creating the legal, commercial, and operational foundations that give customers and investors confidence to adopt something entirely new. One piece of advice I'd also give every founder is to have a great lawyer by your side from day one. Whether you're structuring your company, protecting intellectual property, negotiating partnerships, or creating something that has never existed before, strong legal guidance becomes an essential part of the journey not something you think about later.” AlArnous also cautioned founders against forcing their businesses into existing categories simply because they are easier to explain. “If you're solving a problem in a fundamentally new way, it's okay to define a new category,” she said. “That takes patience, consistency, and conviction but if you get it right, you're not just building a company; you're creating an entirely new market.”

Pictured in the lead image are the leadershop teams of EdenMountain and GrowthX. All images courtesy EdenMountain.