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 going through builders extra centered 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 Sequence A funding, led by Africa-focused VC agency Partech Africa, validating its mannequin of mixing property listings with brokerage companies.
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 Sequence As for an African startup. In 2022, it raised a $5 million seed round 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 international locations, the previous Vodafone govt needed to put money into actual property in Egypt, a market many individuals view as a hedge towards inflation and forex devaluation.
Nonetheless, as he navigated the method of buying property, the dearth of transparency and the prevalence of biased recommendation grew to become obvious issues.
“I had no approach to have a look at the market and perceive what’s on the market, apart from going nearly 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 individuals purchase, promote, put money into, finance, and handle property. Its mannequin, combining a property itemizing platform with brokerage companies, has set it aside in an business 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 have been skeptical about Nawy’s worth as a result of it wasn’t large enough to drive site 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 Companions (its product for brokers), accessing stay stock and versatile payouts.
Moreover, the Cairo-based proptech attracts over 1,000,000 month-to-month guests, with tons of of builders competing for visibility. About 150 builders cowl most of Egypt’s new construct market, which is worth around $30 billion, based mostly on 100,000 transactions yearly, in response to El Beltagy.
Over the previous couple of years, Nawy has expanded beyond listings and brokerage companies, evolving right into a full-stack actual property ecosystem. This consists of Nawy Shares, a fractional possession product that lets customers put money into property with no less than $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 via installment plans and financing choices in a market the place banks not often provide loans for actual property purchases.
“The true 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 mentioned 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.
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 during the last 4 years, regardless of the Egyptian pound dropping 69% of its worth.
El Beltagy attributes a lot of this development to the market’s demand for actual property as a hedge towards inflation and forex devaluation. Whereas the forex disaster did affect native demand, the inflow of expatriate cash helped offset the drop.
Consequently, the worthwhile Nawy closed 2024 with over $1.4 billion in gross merchandise worth (GMV), up from $38 million in 2020.
With recent capital, Nawy plans to increase 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 firms alongside the way in which. Not too long ago, it acquired the property administration startup ROA and rebranded it as “Nawy Unlocked,” increasing its product choices.
The Sequence 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.
Different notable traders collaborating within the spherical embody 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 inspiration for a contemporary, tech-driven actual property expertise,” mentioned Tidjane Deme, normal companion at Partech. “Their group has deep market insights, coupled with bold regional enlargement plans and distinctive execution, positioning them because the clear proptech champion in Africa and the Center East.”
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