For decades, the purchase of a property in Egypt meant to navigate a fragmented real estate market, rely on personal networks, facing the commission -oriented brokers and facing developers more focused on sales than meeting customer needs.
In 2019, Mostafa el BeltagyAbdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abu Ghanima and Aly Rafea founded Nawy To provide transparency and efficiency on the market. Now positioning itself as the largest Protech platform in Africa, Nawy has lifted $ 52 million in series A series financing, directed by the venture capital company focused on Africa, Partech Africa, validating its model of combination of properties with the brokerage services.
The A series, which also includes $ 23 million in debt funding for the best Egyptian banks, brings the total to $ 75 million, one of the largest series has for an African startup.
The journey of the co-founder and CEO El Beltagy in Proptech began as personal frustration. After several years working in corporate jobs in several countries, he wanted to invest in real estate in Egypt, a market that many people consider as a coverage against inflation and the devaluation of the frames.
However, while he was sailing the process of purchasing goods, the lack of transparency and the prevalence of biased advice has become flagrant problems.
“I had no way to look at the market and understand what exists, apart from going almost developer by the developer, picking up their brochures and asking their sellers’ questions, who was very ineffective,” said the CEO. “In this sector, everyone is encouraged to push you in one way or another.”
These challenges led El Beltagy to build Nawy to help people buy, sell, invest, finance and manage goods. Its model, combining a property rating platform with brokerage services, distinguished it in an industry still dominated by agents with entrenched and offline relationships.
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At first, Nawy had trouble securing these lists. The developers were skeptical about the value of Nawy because they were not large enough to generate traffic to their announcements. The brokers, on the other hand, saw Nawy as a competitor.
To strengthen confidence, Nawy introduced immediate commission payments, funded from the start, to brokers who made their first transaction on the platform. This feeling has changed, leading to word of mouth growth which has seen more than 3,000 carriageways using Nawy Partners (its broker product), accessing live stocks and flexible payments.
In addition, the proptech, based in Cairo, attracts more than a million monthly visitors, with hundreds of developers in competition for visibility. About 150 developers cover most of the new Egyptian construction market, which is worth around $ 30 billionBased on 100,000 transactions per year, according to El Beltagy.
In recent years, Nawy has extended beyond lists and brokerage services, evolving to a full real estate ecosystem. This includes Nawy Actions, a fractional property product that allows users to invest in property with at least $ 500, which makes real estate accessible to the Egyptian population with intermediate income, which has long been assessed.
In addition, Nawy has developed a mortgage product, “move now paying later”, designed to allow users to buy through payment plans and financing options on a market where banks rarely offer loans for real estate purchases.
“The real estate market is very unbalanced in the sense that most people buy a new construction, not resale. We believe that the activation of this product will cause a change,” said El Beltagy. “It is a mortgage packed differently because mortgages are almost nonexistent here.” He added that Nawy’s 23 million dollars debt supports this offer.
Sheltered from economic volatility?
These products have diversified Nawy’s sources of income, which the company claims to have increased more than 50 times in dollars in the past four years, although the Egyptian pound has lost 69% of its value.
El Beltagy attributes a large part of this growth to the demand of real estate on the market as a coverage against inflation and the devaluation of the frames. Although the currency crisis had an impact on local demand, the influx of expatriate money contributed to offset the decline.
Consequently, Nawy closed 2024 with more than $ 1.4 billion in the value of raw goods (GMV), against $ 38 million in 2020.
With a new capital, Nawy plans to expand beyond Egypt in North Africa and the Middle East, the regions quickly emerging as some of the most promising real estate markets in the world. Nawy targets Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates like its next markets (for example, platforms like Huspy and Property Finder already have a strong traction.)
El Beltagy mentions that the company will acquire small companies along the way. Recently, he acquired the Roa real estate management startup and renamed it as “Nawy Unlocked”, expanding his product offers.
The A series, raised on two tranches, will finance these plans, in particular by progressing the development of products and integrating AI into the processes of Nawy, according to El Beltagy.
The other notable investors participating in the round include the Nclude Fund for Development Partners International, E & Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Hof Capital, March Capital Investments, Outliers, Plug and Play, Shorooq Partners, Venturesouq and Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures.
“We are delighted to support Nawy as they build the basics of modern real estate experience and technology,” said Tidjane Deme, a general partner at Parth. “Their team has in-depth information on the market, associated with ambitious regional expansion plans and an exceptional execution, positioning them as the Clear Proptech champion in Africa and the Middle East.”
