The Ninja story: how HungerStation's founder built Ninja and tried to buy back his first company

Full film transcript

In June 2026, a Saudi company reportedly made an offer to buy another company.

The irony: its founder is the same person who built the other company, more than ten years ago.

The first company is Ninja, the second is HungerStation. And the founder: Ibrahim Aljassim.

In 2012, Aljassim founded HungerStation with Hussein Bukhamseen.

It helped millions of people get used to ordering food online.

In 2016, foodpanda bought the majority stake, and HungerStation became part of Germany's Delivery Hero.

In 2023, Delivery Hero paid $297 million to own it fully.

But Aljassim saw the next wave.

People don't want just food. They want groceries, pharmacy, household items, within minutes.

In 2022, he launched Ninja, with Saud Alqahtani and Jan Berk Donmez.

The idea: dark stores.

Stores no customer ever enters, designed only to prepare your order in minutes.

Today, Ninja has more than 100 dark stores, in more than 28 cities.

In Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.

In 2025, it raised $250 million, led by Riyad Capital.

And it became a unicorn, valued at $1.5 billion.

Its revenue that same year was close to $1 billion, according to the company.

And here, we return to the start.

Ninja made a preliminary offer to buy HungerStation, and hired global banks for the deal.

But in July, Uber announced a deal to acquire all of Delivery Hero for 13 billion euros. HungerStation included.

So Aljassim built a company, sold it, built a bigger one, and tried to bring the first one back.

The lesson for you as a founder: an exit isn't the end of the story.

Sometimes, it's the start of the second chapter.

Follow us at Saudi Founders.

Detailed figures and sources are in the Ninja profile in the directory.