For a long time, shopping for property in Egypt meant navigating a fragmented actual property market, counting on private networks, coping with commission-driven brokers, and going through builders extra targeted on promoting than serving buyer wants.
In 2019, Mostafa El Beltagy co-founded Nawy to carry transparency and effectivity to the market. Now positioning itself as Africa’s largest proptech platform, Nawy has raised $52 million in Series A funding, led by Africa-focused VC agency Partech Africa, validating its mannequin of mixing property listings with brokerage providers.
The spherical, which additionally consists of $23 million in debt financing from Egypt’s prime banks, brings the full to $75 million, one of many largest Series 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 wished to spend money on actual property in Egypt, a market many individuals view as a hedge in opposition to inflation and forex devaluation.
However, as he navigated the method of buying property, the dearth of transparency and the prevalence of biased recommendation grew to become evident issues.
“I had no approach to take a look at the market and perceive what’s on the market, apart from going nearly developer by developer, selecting up their brochures and asking their salespeople questions, which was extremely inefficient,” the CEO recounted. “In this sector, everyone seems to be incentivized to push you a technique 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. Developers had been skeptical about Nawy’s worth as a result of it wasn’t sufficiently big to drive visitors to their listings. Brokers, however, noticed Nawy as a competitor.
To construct belief, Nawy launched instant fee funds, funded upfront, to brokers who made their first transaction on the platform. This shifted sentiment, resulting in word-of-mouth development that has seen over 3,000 brokerages actively utilizing Nawy Partners (its product for brokers), accessing reside stock and versatile payouts.
Additionally, the Cairo-based proptech attracts over 1,000,000 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, in response to El Beltagy.
Over the previous couple of years, Nawy has expanded past listings and brokerage providers, evolving right into a full-stack actual property ecosystem. This consists of Nawy Shares, a fractional possession product that lets customers spend money on property with not less than $500, making actual property accessible to Egypt’s middle-income inhabitants, which has lengthy been priced out.
Additionally, Nawy has developed a mortgage product, “Move Now Pay Later,” designed to permit customers to purchase by means of installment plans and financing choices in a market the place banks not often 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 consider 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 nearly non-existent right here.” He added that Nawy’s $23 million debt facility backs this providing.
Immune to financial volatility?
These merchandise have diversified Nawy’s income streams, which the corporate claims to have grown greater than 50x in greenback phrases during the last 4 years, regardless of the Egyptian pound shedding 69% of its worth.
El Beltagy attributes a lot of this development to the market’s demand for actual property as a hedge in opposition to inflation and forex devaluation. While the forex disaster did impression native demand, the inflow of expatriate cash helped offset the drop.
As a end result, 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 increase past Egypt into North Africa and the Middle East, areas quickly rising as among the world’s most promising actual property markets. Nawy is focusing on Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as its subsequent markets (within the UAE for example, platforms like Huspy and Property Finder have already got robust traction.)
El Beltagy mentions that the corporate will purchase smaller firms alongside the way in which. Recently, it acquired the property administration startup ROA and rebranded it as “Nawy Unlocked,” increasing its product choices.
The Series A spherical, raised throughout two tranches, will fund these plans, together with advancing product improvement and integrating AI throughout Nawy’s processes, in response to El Beltagy.
Other notable traders taking part within the spherical embrace 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 help Nawy as they construct the muse for a contemporary, tech-driven actual property expertise,” stated Tidjane Deme, normal companion at Partech. “Their staff has deep market insights, coupled with formidable regional enlargement plans and distinctive execution, positioning them because the clear proptech champion in Africa and the Middle East.”
