Egypt’s Nawy, the largest proptech in Africa, raises $52M to take on MENA

For decades, buying spot successful Egypt meant navigating a fragmented existent property market, relying connected idiosyncratic networks, dealing with commission-driven brokers, and facing developers much focused connected selling than serving lawsuit needs.

In 2019, Mostafa El Beltagy co-founded Nawy to bring transparency and ratio to the market. Now positioning itself arsenic Africa’s largest proptech platform, Nawy has raised $52 cardinal successful Series A funding, led by Africa-focused VC steadfast Partech Africa, validating its exemplary of combining spot listings with brokerage services.

The round, which besides includes $23 cardinal successful indebtedness financing from Egypt’s apical banks, brings the full to $75 million, 1 of the largest Series As for an African startup. In 2022, it raised a $5 cardinal effect round led by Egypt’s wealthiest family, the Sawiris.

CEO El Beltagy’s travel into proptech began with idiosyncratic frustration. After respective years moving successful firm jobs crossed aggregate countries, the erstwhile Vodafone enforcement wanted to put successful existent property successful Egypt, a marketplace galore radical presumption arsenic a hedge against ostentation and currency devaluation.

However, arsenic helium navigated the process of purchasing property, the deficiency of transparency and the prevalence of biased proposal became glaring problems.

“I had nary mode to look astatine the marketplace and recognize what’s retired there, speech from going astir developer by developer, picking up their brochures and asking their salespeople questions, which was highly inefficient,” the CEO recounted. “In this sector, everyone is incentivized to propulsion you 1 mode oregon another.”

These challenges led El-Beltagy to physique Nawy to assistance radical buy, sell, put in, finance, and negociate property. Its model, combining a spot listing level with brokerage services, has acceptable it isolated successful an manufacture inactive dominated by agents with entrenched, offline relationships. The main enforcement launched the institution alongside Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abou Ghanima and Aly Rafea.

Making existent property accessible

At first, Nawy struggled to unafraid those listings. Developers were skeptical astir Nawy’s worth due to the fact that it wasn’t large capable to thrust postulation to their listings. Brokers, connected the different hand, saw Nawy arsenic a competitor.

To physique trust, Nawy introduced contiguous committee payments, funded upfront, to brokers who made their archetypal transaction connected the platform. This shifted sentiment, starring to word-of-mouth maturation that has seen implicit 3,000 brokerages actively utilizing Nawy Partners (its merchandise for brokers), accessing unrecorded inventory and flexible payouts.

Additionally, the Cairo-based proptech attracts implicit a cardinal monthly visitors, with hundreds of developers competing for visibility. About 150 developers screen astir of Egypt’s caller physique market, which is worthy astir $30 billion, based connected 100,000 transactions annually, according to El Beltagy.

Over the past fewer years, Nawy has expanded beyond listings and brokerage services, evolving into a full-stack existent property ecosystem. This includes Nawy Shares, a fractional ownership merchandise that lets users put successful spot with astatine slightest $500, making existent property accessible to Egypt’s middle-income population, which has agelong been priced out.

Additionally, Nawy has developed a owe product, “Move Now Pay Later,” designed to let users to bargain done installment plans and financing options successful a marketplace wherever banks seldom connection loans for existent property purchases.

“The existent property marketplace is precise lopsided successful the consciousness that astir radical are buying caller build, not resale. We judge enabling this merchandise volition origin a spot of a shift,” El Beltagy said of the embedded concern product. “It’s owe packaged otherwise due to the fact that mortgages are astir non-existent here.” He added that Nawy’s $23 cardinal indebtedness installation backs this offering.

Immune to economical volatility?

These products person diversified Nawy’s gross streams, which the institution claims to person grown much than 50x successful dollar presumption implicit the past 4 years, contempt the Egyptian lb losing 69% of its value.

El Beltagy attributes overmuch of this maturation to the market’s request for existent property arsenic a hedge against ostentation and currency devaluation. While the currency situation did interaction section demand, the influx of expatriate wealth helped offset the drop.

As a result, the profitable Nawy closed 2024 with implicit $1.4 cardinal successful gross merchandise worth (GMV), up from $38 cardinal successful 2020.

With caller capital, Nawy plans to grow beyond Egypt into North Africa and the Middle East, regions rapidly emerging arsenic immoderate of the world’s astir promising existent property markets. Nawy is targeting Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE arsenic its adjacent markets (in the UAE for instance, platforms similar Huspy and Property Finder already person beardown traction.)

El Beltagy mentions that the institution volition bargain smaller companies on the way. Recently, it acquired the spot absorption startup ROA and rebranded it arsenic “Nawy Unlocked,” expanding its merchandise offerings.

The Series A round, raised crossed 2 tranches, volition money these plans, including advancing merchandise improvement and integrating AI crossed Nawy’s processes, according to El Beltagy.

Other notable investors participating successful the circular see Development Partners International’s Nclude Fund, e& Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, HOF Capital, March Capital Investments, Outliers, Plug and Play, Shorooq Partners, VentureSouq, and Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures.

“We’re excited to enactment Nawy arsenic they physique the instauration for a modern, tech-driven existent property experience,” said Tidjane Deme, wide spouse astatine Partech. “Their squad has heavy marketplace insights, coupled with ambitious determination enlargement plans and exceptional execution, positioning them arsenic the wide proptech champion successful Africa and the Middle East.”