For decades, the purchase of assets in Egypt meant the sailing of a fragmented real estate market, relying on personal networks, dealing with commission -led brokers and faced developers more concentrated in sales than customer needs service.
In 2019, Mostafa El Beltagy co-founded Nawy to bring transparency and efficiency to the market. Now positioning herself as Africa’s largest Proptech platform, Nawy has raised $ 52 million in Serie A funds, led by VC -focused Africa Firm Partech Africa, certifying its combination of property lists with brokerage services.
The round, which also includes $ 23 million in debt funding from Egypt’s highest banks, brings the total to $ 75 million, one of the largest series like for an African start. In 2022, it raised a $ 5 million round led by Egypt’s richest family, Sawiris.
CEO El Beltagy’s journey to Proptech began with personal disappointment. After a few years working in corporate work in many countries, the former Vodafone executive wanted to invest in real estate in Egypt, a market that many people see as a protection against inflation and devaluation of the currency.
However, as he sailed in the property acquisition process, lack of transparency and spreading unilateral tips became bright problems.
“I had no way of looking at the market and understanding what is there, except for the developer to go from the developer, pick up their brochures and ask the questions of their sellers, which were very ineffective,” CEO confessed. “In this sector, everyone is stimulated to push you one way or another.”
These challenges made El-Beltagy build Nawy to help people buy, sell, invest, finance and manage property. Its model, combining a property list platform with brokerage services, has divided it into an industry that still prevails from agents with embedded, offline relationships. The executive chief launched the company along with Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abou Ghanima and Aly Rafea.
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Making real estate accessible
At first, Nawy tried to provide those lists. The developers were skeptical about Nawy’s value because it was not great enough to direct traffic to their lists. Brokers, on the other hand, saw Nawy as a competitor.
To build confidence, Nawy presented the immediate payments of the commissions, funded on the front, for the mediator who made their first transaction on the platform. This displaced feeling, leading to an increase in words of the mouth that has seen over 3,000 brokerage actively using Nawy partners, entering direct inventory and flexible payment.
Moreover, Cairo -based proptech attracts over a million monthly visitors, with hundreds of developers competing for visibility. About 150 developers cover most of the new Egypt market, which is worth about $ 30 billion, based on 100,000 transactions per year, according to El Beltagy.
In recent years, Nawy has expanded beyond the lists and brokerage services, evolving into a full real estate ecosystem. This includes Nawy shares, a partial ownership product that allows users to invest in property with at least $ 500, making real estate accessible to the Egyptian middle -income population, which has been priced.
Moreover, Nawy has developed a mortgage product, “MOVE now pay later”, created to allow users to buy through installment plans and financing options in a market where banks rarely offer credit for real estate purchases.
“The real estate market is very weak in the sense that most people are buying new buildings, not resale. We believe that enabling this product will cause a slight change,” El Beltagy told the finance product. “Horte mortgage packed differently because the mortgages are almost non-existent here.” He added that Nawy’s $ 23 million debt facility supports the offer.
Immune to economic instability?
These products have diversified Nawy’s revenue flows, which the company claims have grown more than 50x in terms of dollar over the past four years, despite the Egyptian pounds lost 69% of its value.
El Beltagy attributes most of this increase the market demand for immovable property as a protection against inflation and currency depreciation. As the currency crisis influenced the local demand, the migrant money flow helped compensate for the decline.
As a result, lucrative Nawy closed 2024 with over $ 1.4 billion in gross goods (GMV), from $ 38 million in 2020.
With fresh capital, Nawy plans to expand beyond Egypt in North Africa and the Middle East, the rapidly emerging regions like some of the most promising real estate markets in the world. Nawy is targeting Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as its future markets (for example in the United Arab Emirates, platforms like Huspy and Finder Property already have strong attraction.
El Beltagy mentions that the company will buy smaller companies along the way. Recently, she gained the start of management of roa property and reprinted it as “Nawy Unlocked”, expanding the offers of its products.
Serie A round, raised in two installments, will fund these plans, including advancing product development and integration of it into Nawy processes, according to El Beltagy.
Other prominent investors participating in the round include the NCLude fund of international development partners, E & Capital, Catalyst, Hof Capital, Mars Capital Investments, Outliers, Plug and Play, Shorooq Partners, and Verod-Cepple Africa Ventures.
“We are excited to support Nawy as they build the foundations for a modern, technology -led experience,” said Tidjane Dee, partner general in Partech. “Their team has in -depth market knowledge, coupled with ambitious regional enlargement plans and extraordinary execution, positioning them as a clear Proptech champion in Africa and the Middle East.”
