UAE-Based Kingpin Raises US$3.5 Million To Scale Its Global Distribution Platform

UAE-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Kingpin has secured US$3.5 million in a seed funding round to grow its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered global distribution platform that helps brands, distributors, and retailers streamline B2B sales by connecting buyer discovery, outreach, and order execution in one unified system. 

Investors backing Kingpin include Infinity Ventures, a San Francisco–based early-stage venture firm focused on B2B fintech and commerce infrastructure; Red Swan Ventures, a New York–based seed fund investing in software, consumer products, and fintech; Mu Ventures, a New York–based pre-seed and seed investor backing commerce infrastructure and marketplace startups; COTU Ventures, a UAE-based early-stage venture capital firm investing in MENA-focused startups; and Outliers Venture Capital, a UAE-based VC firm supporting early-stage technology companies, with additional backing from Abu Dhabi-based Hub71. 

With the new capital, Kingpin—which was founded by Harsh Sajnani and Guilherme Soares in the UAE in 2021—plans to scale its engineering and product teams, deepen its AI capabilities, and expand into Europe and North America. In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Sajnani and Soares offered a peek into the startup’s origins, while also detailing its future plans. 

“Kingpin was born from two parallel retail journeys on opposite sides of the world that converged in Dubai,” Sajnani shares. “I grew up in a family distributing international brands across the Middle East; my co-founder Guilherme came from a multi-generation retail business in Brazil. Despite different roles and markets, we saw the same issue everywhere: B2B retail ran on fragmented infrastructure. Spreadsheets, WhatsApp threads, manual follow-ups, relationship-driven access, and costly channels like trade shows. Sellers couldn’t reach the right buyers, retailers lacked visibility, and growth depended on manual effort rather than systems.” 

But what had started as a shared frustration became something far bigger once Sajnani and Soares connected in Dubai. “Meeting in Dubai made it clear the problem wasn’t only regional, but structural,” Sajnani says. “The UAE became the natural home for Kingpin, not just because I was born here and Guilherme relocated in 2021, but because the region sits at the intersection of global trade routes, emerging-market momentum, and a fast-growing innovation ecosystem. It’s the right environment to rebuild the operating system for B2B commerce.” 

That perspective shaped a mission centered on bringing the entire B2B commerce motion into one platform, with Sajnani proudly noting that from its headquarters in Dubai, Kingpin now works with more than 300 distributors and brands across beauty, fashion, and sports. “Today, we serve brands, distributors, and retailers in over 75 countries, reinforcing that these gaps exist everywhere,” Sajnani shares. “Building from Dubai gives us a strategic base to scale outward, while staying close to both emerging and mature markets.” 

Kingpin says that its platform can help sales teams increase revenue by up to 20 percent, shorten sales cycles by 85 percent, and save more than 200 hours per month through automated workflows. Its AI-powered retailer discovery engine also supports brands as they expand into new markets by validating prospects, accessing verified contacts, and tailoring outreach at scale. Such aspects make it clear why Kingpin has managed to secure backers for what it is building. 

“Our investors backed Kingpin because they’ve seen the same systemic issue firsthand: B2B commerce runs on fragmented infrastructure, manual workflows, and legacy systems that slow revenue down,” Soares, co-founder and COO of Kingpin, says. “Many of our backers come from retail, distribution, and commerce enablement themselves, so the fit was natural. They recognized both the scale of the problem and the need for a new infrastructure layer built from the ground up for the AI era.” 

The two entrepreneurs’ operating backgrounds offered additional clarity to investors evaluating Kingpin’s approach. “What stood out to them was our lived experience across both sides of the value chain (Harsh on distribution, me on retail), the consistency of the problem across markets from São Paulo to Dubai to New York, and early proof points showing immediate impact in deal flow, visibility, and operational efficiency even at an early stage,” Soares noted. 

Soares also highlighted that the investors that Kingpin has got on board aren't supporting the enterprise only from a capital perspective. “They’re opening doors to brands and distributors across the US, Europe, and Latin America, accelerating partnerships across AI, retail, and supply chain ecosystems, and advising us on scaling both product-led and enterprise motions in parallel,” Soares says. “Most importantly, they share our belief that the future of commerce won’t be stitched together from point solutions—it will run on a connected system that operates across markets end-to-end.” 

According to Sajnani, one persistent issue still slows the global distribution sector: teams often lack the infrastructure to truly drive growth. “The biggest gap in distribution today is how little control teams have over their own growth,” he says. “The industry still runs relationship-driven discovery, fragmented data, and sales activity scattered across disconnected tools. In that environment, sellers react to opportunities rather than shaping them; retailers lack visibility into what will drive the best sell-through, and teams spend more time piecing together information than moving revenue forward. The systems end up running the operators, not the other way around.” 

However, Sajnani believes that the sector is moving toward a very different model than the one it has known for decades. “The next shift and where we’re already building is toward autonomous revenue operations,” he predicts. “AI will take on the operational layer: identifying and qualifying buyers, running targeted outreach, managing workflows, and supporting order execution end-to-end. Teams will focus on strategy and relationships instead of stitching workflows together manually. It may sound ambitious now, but once companies experience what it feels like to run their sales engine rather than be run by it, it will quickly become the standard.” 

Meanwhile, as Kingpin plans to make inroads into Europe and North America, the founders are using their work in emerging markets to shape the way they scale. “Expanding into Europe and North America means navigating deeper legacy systems, stricter compliance, and more complex integrations,” Soares notes. “But our advantage comes from where we started. Building Kingpin in the UAE and other emerging markets meant designing speed, fragmented systems, and users who rely on intuitive tools to move fast. If you can solve B2B commerce in those conditions, you naturally build software flexible enough to scale into more structured markets.” 

“What that taught us is simple: the best systems are the ones you barely notice,” Soares continues. “Workflows disappear, onboarding creates momentum, and manual revenue work gets automated rather than absorbed by more headcount. We’re part of a generation of builders proving that products born in this region can scale outward, and with the UAE doubling down on AI and Dubai operating as a live hub for global trade, this feels like the perfect moment to build a category-defining company from here.” 

For other startups looking to follow a similar path as that of Kingpin, Sajnani doesn’t claim to have a formula—but he does share what has genuinely made a difference for his enterprise. “We’re still learning every day; so, rather than offer advice, we share two principles that have shaped how we build Kingpin,” Sajnani says. “First: stay closer to the customer than feel comfortable. B2B commerce is inherently messy; full of legacy workflows, edge cases, and incentives that don’t always align. The end user and the organization buying the product don’t always share the same goals, and real infrastructure only works when you’re embedded in the actual workflows, not the theoretical ones.” 

“Second: don’t solve one link in the chain, solve the chain,” Sajnani continues. “In this space, value gets lost when prospecting, outreach, and order execution live in separate systems. The opportunity in the AI era is to unify those motions into one connected engine that moves people, products, and revenue in the same direction. That’s why we’re building Kingpin: not to modernize one step of the process, but to give brands, distributors, and retailers a true entry point into the AI era through a single, end-to-end system.” 

Pictured in the lead image are Kingpin's co-founders Harsh Sajnani (L) and Guilherme Soares (R). Image courtesy Kingpin.