From Regional Retail Leadership to Building Kanaa: Kartik Bhatt on Entrepreneurship, E-Commerce and What Comes Next

Over the past two decades, Kartik Bhatt has built and transformed consumer businesses across the Middle East, working across retail, e-commerce, digital transformation and P&L leadership. His regional experience spans the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and other markets, giving him a front-row view of how consumer behaviour and commerce have evolved across the region.

Today, that experience has found a new expression through Kanaa, a Saudi-born digital commerce venture incubated by Al Nahla Group.

As e-commerce in Saudi Arabia continues to mature, Kanaa is evolving from its original toys-led proposition into a broader, multi-category lifestyle-commerce platform.

We spoke with Kartik about his experience in the region, what led him to entrepreneurship, and, almost as a point of curiosity, about the business he is now building with Kanaa.

Q: You have spent much of your career in the Middle East, leading businesses across retail, e-commerce and consumer sectors. How has that experience shaped your approach to leadership?

Kartik Bhatt: My experience in the Middle East has given me the opportunity to work across very different markets, business models and stages of transformation.

At Sharaf Retail, I worked across businesses including Forever 21, Adventure HQ and Cotton On, with responsibility spanning P&L, retail operations, e-commerce, consumer marketing, digital transformation and regional expansion. That gave me a strong understanding of how consumer businesses operate at scale across different GCC markets.

Later, at Modern Electronics, my focus shifted more heavily towards digital transformation and building the direct-to-consumer ecosystem. That experience reinforced how technology, customer acquisition, merchandising, fulfilment and data need to come together to build a sustainable digital business.

What the region has taught me most is that there is no single playbook. Consumer behaviour, category maturity and competitive dynamics can differ significantly from one market to another. You need a clear strategic framework, but you also need the ability to adapt quickly.

Q: Having spent years transforming and scaling established businesses, what attracted you to building something from the ground up?

Kartik Bhatt: There is a very different energy in building something from the ground up.

In an established business, you are often working with an existing brand, organisation, infrastructure and customer base. The challenge is to transform or scale what already exists.

Entrepreneurship gives you the opportunity to start with a thesis and build the entire system around it. From the business model and proposition to the technology, organisation, customer experience and go-to-market.

That combination of strategy and execution is something I have always enjoyed, so moving into a founder-led role felt like a natural progression.

Q: And then there is Kanaa. We happened to notice the startup and became curious, what exactly is Kanaa, and what made you want to build it?

Kartik Bhatt: Kanaa started with a clear opportunity in the Saudi market, but the ambition was always broader than creating another online store.

The idea was to build a digital-first lifestyle-commerce platform that could evolve with the consumer and become a meaningful Saudi Arabia marketplace for a wide range of lifestyle needs.

The business had an initial foundation in toys and children's products, but as we studied the market and customer behaviour, it became clear that there was an opportunity to build something much broader.

Today, Kanaa spans multiple lifestyle categories, including toys, baby products, books, puzzles, gaming, electronics, stationery and other lifestyle products.

The bigger idea is to create a platform where customers can discover products across different aspects of their everyday lives, rather than being restricted to a single category.

Q: Kanaa was initially associated with toys. What drove the decision to evolve beyond that proposition?

Kartik Bhatt: We recognised that the opportunity was not necessarily to build a very large business around one category. It was to build a broader consumer platform.

The toys category gave us a strong starting point and an understanding of the customer. From there, we looked at adjacent and high-potential categories where we could build meaningful assortment and create additional purchase occasions.

That led us towards a multi-category model.

But diversification was not simply about adding more products. We also wanted to improve the underlying economics of the business, category mix, pricing, margins, inventory efficiency and promotional dependency.

The objective was to create a business that could scale in a healthier and more sustainable way.

Q: Gaming and perfumes are two notable additions to Kanaa’s portfolio. What drove the decision to enter these categories, and how do they fit into Kanaa’s broader growth strategy?

Kartik Bhatt: Both categories represent different but compelling consumer opportunities.

Gaming is a natural fit for the digitally connected consumer we serve. It also gives us the opportunity to participate in a category with strong engagement, from consoles and accessories to a wider gaming ecosystem.

Perfumes, on the other hand, allow us to enter another important lifestyle category with a very different purchase occasion and consumer profile.

The common thread is that we don't want to add categories simply for the sake of expanding the catalogue. We look at the size of the opportunity, customer relevance, economics, supply ecosystem and our ability to build a differentiated proposition.

Q: Does that mean we should expect more category pivots from Kanaa?

Kartik Bhatt: I would call them evolutions rather than pivots.

The consumer is changing continuously, so the platform has to evolve as well.

We will continue looking at categories where we believe Kanaa can add genuine value. That could mean expanding within existing verticals, entering new lifestyle categories, developing partnerships or exploring new formats of commerce.

But we will remain disciplined. Scale for the sake of scale is not the objective.

We want each new category to strengthen the overall platform rather than simply increase the number of SKUs.

Q: How do you see the broader opportunity for a business like Kanaa in Saudi Arabia?

Kartik Bhatt: The opportunity is significant because Saudi Arabia has a digitally sophisticated and increasingly demanding consumer base.

The conversation around e-commerce in Saudi Arabia has moved well beyond whether consumers are willing to shop online. The market is now about experience, trust, convenience, assortment and value.

That creates substantial Saudi Arabia business opportunities for companies that understand the consumer and can build sustainable business models around their needs.

There is also significant potential for an online business in Saudi Arabia as digital adoption continues to reshape how consumers discover, evaluate and purchase products.

More broadly, the transformation taking place under Saudi Vision 2030 is creating an increasingly supportive environment for digital businesses, entrepreneurship, private-sector participation and economic diversification. For companies like Kanaa, that creates an opportunity to build businesses that are digitally native while contributing to the broader evolution of the Kingdom's consumer economy.

For Kanaa, the opportunity is to participate in that evolution by building a platform that is locally relevant but capable of scaling regionally.

Q: How important is Al Nahla Group to Kanaa's story?

Kartik Bhatt: Very important.

Kanaa is incubated by Al Nahla Group, and that gives us a valuable combination of entrepreneurial speed and institutional backing.

The ambition is to build a modern digital business while benefiting from the experience, governance and long-term perspective of an established Saudi business group.

For me, that creates an interesting environment. We can operate with the speed and agility required of a startup while also thinking about the business with the discipline and long-term orientation required to build an enduring enterprise.

Q: Your experience has included building and expanding businesses across several regional markets. How does that influence Kanaa's growth plans?

Kartik Bhatt: It makes us very conscious that regional expansion needs to be thoughtful.

I've worked across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and other markets, and one thing you learn is that you cannot simply copy and paste a business model from one country into another.

The consumer, logistics environment, category dynamics and competitive landscape can all be different.

Saudi Arabia is the foundation for Kanaa, but we are building with a broader GCC opportunity in mind. Expansion will come when we believe the operating model, category proposition and economics are strong enough to support it.

The objective is sustainable regional growth rather than expansion purely for geographic presence.

Q: What would ultimately drive Kanaa's success?

Kartik Bhatt: I would say five things: customer trust, relevant assortment, technology, disciplined economics and execution.

First, you need customer trust. Without that, there is no long-term e-commerce business.

Second, assortment needs to be relevant. Having a large number of products doesn't automatically create value. Customers need the right products at the right price and with a good discovery experience.

Third is technology. It needs to make the customer journey simpler and allow the business to operate efficiently at scale.

Fourth is economics. Growth cannot depend indefinitely on heavy promotions or inefficient customer acquisition. We need a model where category mix, pricing and acquisition economics work together.

And finally, execution. Strategy only matters if the organisation can deliver it consistently.

That's where my experience operating large and complex businesses becomes useful. You learn that sustainable growth is ultimately an organisational capability, not just a marketing objective.

Q: What are the biggest lessons from your previous regional roles that you are applying to Kanaa?

Kartik Bhatt: One is that growth and profitability have to be considered together.

Another is the importance of building the organisation alongside the business. Technology, operations, merchandising, finance, customer experience and marketing cannot operate as separate islands.

And perhaps most importantly, you have to remain close to the customer.

Markets move quickly. What worked two years ago may not work today. The ability to identify those changes and respond without losing sight of the long-term strategy is critical.

Q: What does the next chapter of Kanaa look like?

Kartik Bhatt: The next chapter is about building depth as much as breadth.

We want to strengthen our existing categories, continue expanding selectively, improve the customer experience and build the technology and operating infrastructure required to scale.

There are opportunities around new categories, strategic partnerships, personalisation, data and potentially new commerce formats.

Geographically, we see the wider GCC as a natural opportunity over time.

But the underlying objective remains the same: build a scalable, trusted and culturally relevant Saudi digital business that can grow beyond its original category and market.

Q: Finally, after everything you've experienced as an operator and now as a Co-Founder, what would make you say Kanaa has truly succeeded?

Kartik Bhatt: Success would be much more than reaching a particular revenue number.

It would mean building a brand that customers trust, an organisation that can execute, a technology platform that can scale and an economic model that is sustainable.

If we can build that from Saudi Arabia and take it successfully into the wider region, while remaining relevant to the customer and disciplined as a business, that would be a meaningful outcome.

The exciting part is that we are still early in that journey.