For many years, shopping for property in Egypt meant navigating a fragmented actual property market, counting on private networks, coping with commission-driven brokers, and dealing with builders extra targeted on promoting than serving buyer wants.
In 2019, Mostafa El Beltagy co-founded Nawy to deliver transparency and effectivity to the market. Now positioning itself as Africa’s largest proptech platform, Nawy has raised $52 million in Collection A funding, led by Africa-focused VC agency Partech Africa, validating its mannequin of mixing property listings with brokerage providers.
The spherical, which additionally contains $23 million in debt financing from Egypt’s high banks, brings the entire to $75 million, one of many largest Collection As for an African startup. In 2022, it raised a $5 million seed spherical led by Egypt’s wealthiest household, the Sawiris.
CEO El Beltagy’s journey into proptech started with private frustration. After a number of years working in company jobs throughout a number of nations, the previous Vodafone govt needed to spend money on actual property in Egypt, a market many individuals view as a hedge in opposition to inflation and foreign money devaluation.
Nevertheless, as he navigated the method of buying property, the shortage of transparency and the prevalence of biased recommendation turned evident issues.
“I had no manner to take a look at the market and perceive what’s on the market, other than going virtually developer by developer, choosing up their brochures and asking their salespeople questions, which was extremely inefficient,” the CEO recounted. “On this sector, everyone seems to be incentivized to push you a method or one other.”
These challenges led El-Beltagy to construct Nawy to assist folks purchase, promote, spend money on, finance, and handle property. Its mannequin, combining a property itemizing platform with brokerage providers, has set it aside in an trade nonetheless dominated by brokers with entrenched, offline relationships. The chief govt launched the corporate alongside Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abou Ghanima and Aly Rafea.
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Making actual property accessible
At first, Nawy struggled to safe these listings. Builders had been skeptical about Nawy’s worth as a result of it wasn’t large enough to drive site visitors to their listings. Brokers, then again, noticed Nawy as a competitor.
To construct belief, Nawy launched rapid fee funds, funded upfront, to brokers who made their first transaction on the platform. This shifted sentiment, resulting in word-of-mouth progress that has seen over 3,000 brokerages actively utilizing Nawy Companions (its product for brokers), accessing stay stock and versatile payouts.
Moreover, the Cairo-based proptech attracts over one million month-to-month guests, with a whole bunch of builders competing for visibility. About 150 builders cowl most of Egypt’s new construct market, which is value round $30 billion, based mostly on 100,000 transactions yearly, based on El Beltagy.
Over the previous few years, Nawy has expanded past listings and brokerage providers, evolving right into a full-stack actual property ecosystem. This contains Nawy Shares, a fractional possession product that lets customers spend money on property with at the very least $500, making actual property accessible to Egypt’s middle-income inhabitants, which has lengthy been priced out.
Moreover, Nawy has developed a mortgage product, “Transfer Now Pay Later,” designed to permit customers to purchase by installment plans and financing choices in a market the place banks hardly ever supply loans for actual property purchases.
“The actual property market may be very lopsided within the sense that most individuals are shopping for new construct, not resale. We imagine enabling this product will trigger a little bit of a shift,” El Beltagy stated of the embedded finance product. “It’s mortgage packaged in another way as a result of mortgages are virtually non-existent right here.” He added that Nawy’s $23 million debt facility backs this providing.
Resistant to financial volatility?
These merchandise have diversified Nawy’s income streams, which the corporate claims to have grown greater than 50x in greenback phrases over the past 4 years, regardless of the Egyptian pound shedding 69% of its worth.
El Beltagy attributes a lot of this progress to the market’s demand for actual property as a hedge in opposition to inflation and foreign money devaluation. Whereas the foreign money disaster did impression native demand, the inflow of expatriate cash helped offset the drop.
In consequence, the worthwhile Nawy closed 2024 with over $1.4 billion in gross merchandise worth (GMV), up from $38 million in 2020.
With contemporary capital, Nawy plans to broaden past Egypt into North Africa and the Center East, areas quickly rising as a number of the world’s most promising actual property markets. Nawy is concentrating on Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as its subsequent markets (within the UAE as an illustration, platforms like Huspy and Property Finder have already got robust traction.)
El Beltagy mentions that the corporate will purchase smaller corporations alongside the way in which. Lately, it acquired the property administration startup ROA and rebranded it as “Nawy Unlocked,” increasing its product choices.
The Collection A spherical, raised throughout two tranches, will fund these plans, together with advancing product growth and integrating AI throughout Nawy’s processes, based on El Beltagy.
Different notable traders taking part within the spherical embrace Improvement Companions Worldwide’s Nclude Fund, e& Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, HOF Capital, March Capital Investments, Outliers, Plug and Play, Shorooq Companions, VentureSouq, and Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures.
“We’re excited to help Nawy as they construct the muse for a contemporary, tech-driven actual property expertise,” stated Tidjane Deme, basic associate at Partech. “Their crew has deep market insights, coupled with formidable regional growth plans and distinctive execution, positioning them because the clear proptech champion in Africa and the Center East.”
