From Digital Media to a MENA E-commerce Powerhouse

In this edition of Founder’s Hustle, we follow Wassim Kari’s leap from strategy consultant to serial entrepreneur, and the rise of one of the Middle East’s leading beauty and health platforms. As co-founder and CEO of Parallel Health & Beauty Holding, Wassim and his co-founders Elsa Aoun and Philippe Rizk navigated Lebanon’s economic collapse, merged multiple startups into one holding company, and grew revenue from $1M to $6M in the midst of crisis, turning the business profitable. This story is a masterclass in bold pivots, operational discipline, and turning gaps into growth.

Ounousa, the Spark that ignited a digital empire

Wassim Kari’s journey into entrepreneurship began as a class project at HEC Paris in 2005. While pursuing a master’s in management, he teamed up with Elsa Aoun — his classmate, co-founder, and now wife — to build Ounousa, a digital Arabic-language magazine for women. They specifically chose the female segment for its strong advertiser demand and kept the content broad, covering everything from fashion to travel to maximize reach and engagement.

MENA social media growth had opened up a gap in Arabic digital content. Spotting the opportunity, Wassim and Elsa jumped in early, using social platforms to distribute content. 

By 2010, advertisers started reaching out. “Agencies came saying, ‘We have brands that want to be on your platform,’” Wassim says. That’s when they incorporated the company to monetize the growing ad demand.

Scaling with new media verticals

In 2013, Elsa left consulting to focus full-time on the venture and spearhead the growth of Ounousa in a full bootstrapping mode. 

With a growing audience and proven monetization, Ounousa was ready to scale and replicate. Instead of sticking to a single vertical, Sohati, a digital health magazine was launched, to fill a gap in Arabic health content, and Loolia was launched to target younger, under-25 women with video content.

While each brand served a distinct audience, they all leveraged shared capabilities in content creation, SEO, and monetization, creating powerful operational synergies. “It wasn’t planned,” Wassim explains. “It was opportunity by opportunity, making use of existing capabilities.” 

As they scaled into new verticals and replicated their winning content formula, venture capital followed, led by investors like IM FNDG.

Going after E-Commerce

In 2017, Wassim and Elsa teamed up with Philippe, a childhood friend, who was heading one of the largest dermo-cosmetics companies as the Middle East General Manager. Together, they saw another opportunity to pursue as the digital media landscape in the Middle East began to shift dramatically.

The arrival of Google and Facebook to Dubai had disrupted the region’s advertising model, squeezing traditional media revenue streams. But Wassim saw an opportunity where others saw decline. “We had the audience—and our advertisers were beauty brands,” he recalls. 

With e-commerce penetration in the beauty space still under 1%, those same brands began pushing for transactional models. In response, Wassim, Elsa, and Philippe launched Loolia Closet, a beauty-focused e-commerce platform, and Sohati Care, a parapharmacy. It was a natural evolution of their media-driven model.

Synergies across media and e-commerce

Coming into e-commerce as content creators gave Wassim and Elsa a powerful edge. While most e-commerce startups start by focusing on trading—managing stock, building supplier relationships, and optimizing logistics—and then work on customer acquisition, they did the opposite.

Thanks to their media background, they already had the audience, creative capabilities, and deep expertise in storytelling and influencer marketing. They knew how to generate demand, capture attention, and build trust. The real challenge was mastering the operational side—inventory, fulfillment, and customer service—which they developed in-house.

This rare combination made them uniquely valuable to cosmetics brands, who saw them as one of the few partners capable of bridging both marketing and commercial execution. By working directly with both sales and marketing teams—often siloed within large cosmetics companies—they became a more efficient, integrated partner. This alignment fostered deep, lasting relationships with major brands and established them as strategic allies, not just resellers.

As Antoun Mouawad, VP of Investment at IM FNDG, noted: "What truly stood out was how each startup complemented the others, creating strong synergies that turned separate ventures into a unified competitive advantage. The founders’ ability to add new verticals while maintaining focus and discipline across each business showcased the strength of their integrated approach"

Restructuring under Parallel

Then came Lebanon’s economic collapse in 2019—a true turning point. “VCs stopped deploying capital. Currency devaluation crushed operations. We were losing money just exchanging to USD on the black market,” Wassim recalls. To survive, they took a bold step: consolidating all shareholders from the various ventures under a single cap table by merging everything into a new holding company: Parallel Health and Beauty. This move safeguarded investor value by avoiding sacrificing one startup for another.

“We relocated the holding structure outside Lebanon to reassure investors and simplify funding,” Wassim explains. “It was painful, legally and administratively, but it saved us, and our investors were very supportive.”

Antoun praised this decisive action: "The merger was a smart and proactive reaction, even anticipating challenges before the crisis fully hit. Successfully navigating this complex consolidation, while simultaneously fundraising and growing the company, is a testament to Wassim’s leadership and his team’s exceptional resilience.” 

IM FNDG’s conviction deepened through the transition. Their initial investment in Sohati was seamlessly converted into shares in the newly formed Parallel, and rather than stepping back during the Lebanon crisis and the merger, they participated again through their “Save Our Startups” fund, created specifically to back resilient founders navigating Lebanon’s economic collapse. 

Today, despite the challenges of the crisis, they have successfully unified back-office operations (tech, finance, accounting, HR) across their media and e-commerce ventures, driving significant cost efficiencies and fueling remarkable growth—from $1 million to $6 million in revenue and becoming a profitable business. They operate across three countries—Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt—while maintaining an impressive media presence: Loolia has 2 million YouTube subscribers, Sohati has 10 million followers on social media, and Ounousa has 17 million followers across platforms.

Geographic positioning

Parallel’s geographic strategy thoughtfully balances market potential, competitive dynamics, and their own operational strengths. By initially focusing on Lebanon and Jordan, markets with relatively low competition, they secured substantial market shares in beauty e-commerce, estimated at 30-40% in Lebanon and 10-15% in Jordan, leveraging a valuable first-mover advantage and steering clear of head-to-head battles with major regional e-commerce giants.

Staying on top of trends

Parallel has made staying ahead of media and technology trends central to their strategy. As e-commerce grew to over 95% of revenue, the content teams shifted focus to innovate and test out new mediums at the service of e-commerce.

They were among the first in Lebanon to explore the metaverse and implement Virtual Try Out AR technologies with L’Oreal Group.

“We don’t miss anything,” Wassim says, highlighting their culture of experimentation. They are now harnessing their rich media assets and data collected (over 4,000 makeup tutorials on Loolia and 20,000 pharmacist-customer skincare consultations on Sohati) to develop a proprietary AI cosmetics agent.

What’s next?

Now expanding into Saudi Arabia, Wassim believes that to stand out in KSA’s well-served e-commerce space, they must offer a truly disruptive experience powered by AI. 

His vision is to create a seamless shopping journey where customers can scan their faces once, receive personalized beauty and skincare recommendations from the AI agent and add the entire routine to their cart with a single click. 

They’re confident that the AI will reach maturity just as they enter the market, enabling them to deliver this unique value proposition and write a new success story in the Kingdom. Backing this next chapter is IM FNDG, investing in Parallel for a third time, a clear vote of confidence in the founders and a testament to their belief in their long-term vision.

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