How Nadeem Bakhsh Is Connecting Saudi Arabia Through Webook

Saudi Arabia’s creative economy is no longer an idea. It’s a capability. Few have shaped its foundations as deliberately as Nadeem Bakhsh. As the founder of Webook, Bakhsh is creating access. Access to experiences, communities, and the cultural energy powering Saudi’s transformation. With a background in user research and digital strategy, he brings rare discipline to the fast-moving world of tech entrepreneurship. His work is a case study in how local insight, when paired with design rigor, can scale into infrastructure, not just apps.

Early Life and Education

Nadeem Bakhsh was born in Manchester and raised between worlds. A Saudi citizen shaped by both global exposure and national roots. That dual perspective would become a defining advantage: the ability to design with cultural fluency while holding his work to international standards.

His education cuts across science and design. Studies in Genetics and Computer Science followed by a master’s degree focused on usability gave him two essential tools: analytical rigor and empathy for users. In practice, he treats research outputs journey maps, usability findings, service blueprints as operational instruments that change how products are built, not as decorative documents.

Founder Timeline at a Glance

In 2012, Nadeem Baksh co-founded UXBERT Labs and introduced rigorous usability testing and customer-experience strategy to teams across the region. In 2016, he and his team launched Hala Yalla to solve a familiar problem: friends trying to book a football pitch across fragmented, offline processes. In 2020, when in-person gatherings paused, the team expanded into online tournaments through Kafu Games, keeping communities active and engaged.

On October 25, 2023, Hala Yalla rebranded to the Webook app to reflect a broader mission and international ambitions. By 2025, leadership was discussing expansion into Europe, company-reported usage of about eight million unique users and ten million tickets processed, and preparations for a future listing.

Leadership Role in Digital Experience

Building UXBERT Labs

UXBERT Labs was founded with one mission: to embed world‑class research and usability into Saudi organizations as a repeatable, internal capability. As Saudi Arabia’s first experience lab and innovation consultancy, UXBERT operates a full usability lab alongside teams in design, R&D, and training. For many product teams, this was their first sustained exposure to rigorously validated customer evidence: it elevated expectations of what quality feels like and sparked a new culture of measurement across the ecosystem.

From Hala Yalla to Webook

The first version of the app solved a simple, familiar need: book a football pitch, invite friends, and play. But the insight behind it went further. The same problems, unclear availability, difficult bookings, scattered information, existed across events, venues, and activities.

“Our former and original brand had a very local flair but didn’t translate internationally and wasn’t descriptive as to what we do,”

— Nadeem Bakhsh

What started in sports quickly expanded into entertainment, culture, hospitality, and travel. The rebrand to Webook made the vision clearer: a single platform for discovering and booking fun experiences. Fast, reliable, and easy to use, Webook offers a design-led answer to one of Vision 2030’s key goals: building a vibrant society where access to culture and recreation is seamless.

“Now our goal is to become the ultimate super app for fun worldwide, helping people discover and book experiences that bring them together,”

— Nadeem Bakhsh

Gaming and Esports Leadership

Community building extended into digital arenas. With Kafu Games, the company hosted esports competitions that turned community energy into online participation. The move protected demand during lockdowns, revealed new behavior data, and created a category the platform could continue to serve as normal life returned.

Co‑Founders and Leadership Bench

The vision and success of Webook are powered by a group of dedicated innovators and leaders:

• Nadeem Bakhsh – Co-Founder & CEO
• Faheem Bakhsh – Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer
• Farrukh Bandey – Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer
• Yousef Shanti – Co-Founder
• Hamdi Missaoui – Co-Founder, Chief Commercial Officer and Acting CTO.

Together, this dynamic leadership team unites expertise in strategy, operations, and product innovation. Driving rapid growth and efficient delivery while maintaining a steadfast commitment to research, security, and data-driven performance.

Scientific Innovation & National Impact

Product and Platform Mechanics

Webook operates as both a consumer marketplace and a layer of infrastructure that partners can re‑skin. For everyday users, it is a catalogue of sports sessions, concerts, festivals, family activities, and getaways, with streamlined search and checkout. For organizers and venues, it provides ticketing, scheduling, analytics, and payments. This dual design compounds distribution because partners bring their own audiences while running on the same reliable rails.

Nadeem Bakhsh Sets His Sights on Global Scale

Under Nadeem Bakhsh’s leadership, Webook has grown from a local solution into a platform handling over eight million users and ten million tickets, with daily peaks reaching 150,000 bookings. His recent move to secure a three-year partnership with the Roshn Saudi League marked a strategic leap into sports, reinforcing Webook’s role as national infrastructure for entertainment access.

Now, Bakhsh is steering the platform toward global markets, with expansion plans targeting the UK, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Public signals of a future IPO underscore his broader vision: to take Saudi-built technology to an international stage.

“My vision is to make webook.com a household name from Hawaii to Tokyo”

— Nadeem Bakhsh

Recognition and Legacy

Early Bet on Riyadh

Years before the current wave of returns to the Kingdom, Nadeem Bakhsh moved operations to Riyadh. It was a clear vote of confidence in Saudi talent and in building capability at home. That early decision helped shape a generation of designers and product managers who now treat user experience as a core competence rather than a finishing touch.

Public Voice and Advocacy

On national stages, Nadeem urges young Saudis and members of the diaspora to come home and build. The message is patriotic and practical. The market is growing, the infrastructure is modernizing, and the bar for digital services rises every quarter. Ambitious people will find hard problems here and the context to solve them at scale.

Vision 2030 Alignment

Webook maps naturally to Vision 2030. It supports a vibrant society by making it easier to participate in culture, sport, and tourism. It fuels a thriving economy by equipping organizers with digital tools and by creating demand for new roles in event operations, customer experience, and product. It contributes to an ambitious nation by exporting Saudi‑built technology and proving that platforms born in Riyadh can compete and collaborate globally.

Closing Thoughts

Vision 2030 invites founders and consultants to build products that make daily life richer and to export Saudi excellence to the world. Nadeem Bakhsh embodies that mandate. He is a Saudi citizen with global training, a designer who thinks like an operator, and a builder whose platforms help millions discover, book, and show up for life. As Webook grows beyond the Kingdom, it carries a simple idea born in Riyadh: when experiences are easy to find and delightful to book, communities thrive, and a nation’s aspirations become habit.

Follow Founder’s Tale as we spotlight the entrepreneurs building tomorrow’s Saudi Arabia.