Salehli raises $100,000 for services in Syria

Salehli has secured 100,000 dollars in a pre-seed round led by EBLA Ventures, according to the announcement. Maynger Ventures joined, along with investors from Syria, the Gulf and East Asia who were not named. The money is for wider operations and a new business-to-business product. No valuation and no stake were disclosed. The close date was not published. Salehli, written صلّحلي in Arabic, is a services marketplace based in Aleppo. It was founded in 2025. A customer describes a job. Craftsmen send prices. The company says it has more than 2,500 trusted craftsmen and more than 10,000 users. Those counts are on its own site. Prices can be in Syrian pounds or dollars. Payment can be cash when the job is done, a local bank transfer, an electronic gateway, or instalments on a high-value job. The site says the platform is free for ordinary users. Craftsmen pay fees, with a free trial period noted in the terms. For a household in Aleppo, the practical question is whether a plumber arrives and whether the price on the quote is the price paid. Syria’s repair market still runs on a phone call and a neighbour’s name. A marketplace can widen that. It can also add a middle step that a family does not need if the craftsman was already known. The 10,000 user figure, if it counts downloads, is not completed jobs. The 2,500 craftsmen figure, if it counts registrations, is not craftsmen who answered a request last week. The new business product is the part the round is meant to fund, and it is the least described. A shop or a building manager booking several trades is a different buyer from a family booking one. The announcement does not say whether that product is live, what it charges, or which city it starts in. Expanding operations with 100,000 dollars is a small team and a marketing push, not a national network. EBLA led a larger Syrian pre-seed, 165,000 dollars for home-care firm Alo Hakeem, in the same weeks. Two Aleppo-linked services bets from the same lead is a pattern. It is not a fund size. Maynger’s presence fits its Levant brief. The firm, which works with early companies in Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, has put money in rather than only mentoring. Investors from East Asia were cited and not identified. A reader cannot tell whether that is one cheque or several, or whether any of it is a grant rather than equity. Gulf participation is the same shape. Named capital would let a founder in Damascus judge the table. Unnamed capital does not. The currency on the job is a further limit. A quote in dollars and a payment in pounds, or the reverse, moves with the rate. The terms allow both. They do not say who bears the move between quote and completion. Instalments on a high-value job need a collector. None of that was in the funding note. A family that accepts a dollar quote and pays in pounds a week later has taken a rate risk the platform has not priced in public. A reader in the Gulf should also separate this from a software export. The customer is in Syria. The craftsman is in Syria. The constraint is Syrian roads, cash and a rate that moves. East Asian and Gulf names on a cap table do not change the price of a pipe fitting in Aleppo. They can, if the money is spent on the roster and the response time, make that fitting easier to book. Trust is the other constraint. A verified badge on a profile is not a guarantee that the person who arrives is the person who was booked, or that the work will be redone if it fails. The terms describe a marketplace. They do not publish a dispute record. The size of the table is the last gap. EBLA led. Maynger joined. The rest are regions, not names. A 100,000 dollar round can be one lead cheque and several small tickets, or a split that leaves the lead with a small stake. Without the split, a later investor cannot tell how crowded the early cap table already is. If Salehli names the business product and the cities it will add with this round, the 100,000 dollars has a use. If the next line is another user count, ask for jobs completed last month and the fee taken from the craftsman. The figure missing is both.