SPICE Co-Founder Zeid Husban On How His KSA-Based Startup Aims To Reshape Restaurant Economics Across The MENA

SPICE, a premium dining and restaurant-tech platform founded by Zeid Husban, Wadi Hawi, and Yousef Sawalha, has launched in Saudi Arabia after emerging from stealth, with support from leading regional hospitality and technology investors who share the founders’ ambition to reshape restaurant economics across the MENA. 

Before launching SPICE, the trio had already built two notable regional ventures: ifood.jo, Jordan’s first food-ordering aggregator connecting diners and restaurants, and POSRocket, a cloud-based point-of-sale system that was later acquired by KSA-based Foodics. With one business rooted in consumer behavior and the other in restaurant operations, the founders have spent more than a decade on both sides of the ecosystem, which has helped shape the perspective that now drives SPICE. 

That experience led them toward a funding model they see as the culmination of their years in the food and beverage industry (F&B). SPICE grew out of their observation that restaurant success relies on a blend of cash flow and customer demand, and that too many operators in high-growth markets still struggle to secure either. In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Husban shared that although the startup formally began in late 2024, its foundation stretches back to the trio’s earlier ventures.

“The three of us have been building restaurants for over a decade," Husban said. "Between ifood.jo, the first food aggregator in Jordan, and POSRocket, the cloud point of sale (POS) acquired by Foodics, we’ve lived every side of the F&B journey: the chaos, the passion, the heartbreak, and the growth. After our last exit, we relocated to Saudi and honestly, that move changed everything. The market here is massive, fast-moving, and culturally obsessed with dining. But behind all the success stories, we kept meeting incredible restaurants doing all the right things… and still struggling.” 

It is here that the years the SPICE co-founders spent building both consumer and backend restaurant platforms came in handy. “With ifood.jo, we understood the consumer psychology behind dining," Husban explained. "With POSRocket, we saw the backend, the numbers, the financial pain points, the operational reality. That combination gave us a 360-degree lens to understand what restaurants need. And it’s not loans; it’s not more apps; it’s alignment. Unlike banks or lending platforms, SPICE isn’t a financial instrument; it's an alignment engine. We give restaurants upfront capital, no debt, no equity, no repayments, and in return, we help fill their tables with real paying customers. It works because incentives are finally aligned.” 

For SPICE, the challenge to drive customers pointed back to a single gap in the market. “Restaurants survive on two things: cash and customers," Husban pointed out. "And most don’t have enough either. So, we built SPICE to fix that.” Indeed, SPICE's answer to this gap is Dining Capital, a model that provides restaurants with upfront funding free of debt, equity, or traditional repayment pressures, and ties that support directly to the diners it brings through their doors. The founders frame it as a new category of financing—one where returns flow not through financial instruments, but through community-driven demand that helps restaurants grow. 

“Our mission is simple: ignite a new dining economy where restaurants flourish, and diners thrive,” Husban explained. “We help restaurants grow without pressure, and we inspire diners to ‘live a little’ and enjoy life through exceptional food experiences. SPICE is what happens when you take everything we learned across B2B and B2C, and build a model that finally aligns everyone’s interests at the center of the table.” 

SPICE was thus custom-built to fill the Saudi market's unmet needs, while leveraging the country's current momentum and scale. Husban credits the Kingdom's restaurant boom, the rise of new culinary concepts, and the influx of tourism as creating one of the region's most competitive dining landscapes, resulting in a "once-in-a-generation opportunity." 

Alongside the funding engine is a premium dining app built by Sawalha, CTO of SPICE. The platform combines artificial intelligence with human curation to help diners discover restaurants, secure reservations, and receive tailored recommendations. For the founders, this pairing of capital and experience is essential as dining shifts from a transactional activity to something more expressive and social across the region. 

SPICE plans to announce its first restaurant partners in early 2026 as it expands across Riyadh, with ambitions to grow into the UAE, the wider GCC, and Europe. The app will roll out with invite-only access, setting the tone for the curated experience the co-founders want to cultivate, as they introduce their dining-capital model into Saudi Arabia’s fast-moving hospitality landscape. 

Husban revealed that SPICE has also secured backing from institutional and strategic partners that will help it scale across the GCC. “We’re backed by top institutional and strategic investors who understand both hospitality and tech,” he said. “People who’ve lived in this industry know where it’s headed. They’re not just investing in SPICE. They’re investing in the future of dining. We have the runway scale aggressively across the GCC, and we’re building SPICE as a category leader. Our ambition is global, and our investors share that vision.” 

Zooming out to look at the F&B investment landscape in the MENA, Husban told us that he sees the appetite for investments in the industry evolving in ways that support SPICE’s thesis. “The investors’ appetite is getting sharper," he said. "The region is maturing fast, and Saudi is becoming one of the most exciting culinary markets in the world. Tourists today don’t just ask what we do, they ask where we eat. Investors are catching on; they're no longer backing just ‘restaurants,’ they’re investing in brands people gather around. As consumer expectations rise, diners want more than great food; they want storytelling, exclusivity, shareability, and experiences that feel personal.” 

In Husban’s view, those shifts place SPICE at the center of a broader transformation in how people dine. “We believe the future of dining isn’t just about eating out; it's about belonging and lifestyle. And our job is to fund, connect, and accelerate that movement, one restaurant at a time," he concluded.

Pictured in the lead image is SPICE co-founder Zeid Husban. Image courtesy SPICE.