Egypt’s Nawy, the largest proptech in Africa, raises $52M to take on MENA

For decades, buying property in Egypt meant navigating a fragmented real estate market, relying on personal networks, dealing with commission-driven brokers, and facing developers more focused on selling than serving customer needs.

In 2019, Mostafa El Beltagy co-founded Nawy to bring transparency and efficiency 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 firm Partech Africa, validating its model of combining property listings with brokerage services.

round, which also includes $23 million in debt financing from Egypt’s top banks, brings the total to $75 million, one of the largest Series A rounds for an African startup. In 2022, it raised a $5 million seed round led by Egypt’s wealthiest family, the Sawiris.

CEO El Beltagy’s journey into proptech began with personal frustration. After several years working in corporate jobs across multiple countries, the former Vodafone executive wanted to invest in real estate in Egypt, a market many people view as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation.

However, as he navigated the process of purchasing property, the lack of transparency and the prevalence of biased advice became glaring problems.

“I had no way to look at the market and understand what’s out there, aside from going almost developer by developer, picking up their brochures and asking their salespeople questions, which was highly inefficient,” the CEO recounted. “In this sector, everyone is incentivized to push you one way or another.”

These challenges led El Beltagy to build Nawy to help people buy, sell, invest in, finance, and manage property. Its model, combining a property listing platform with brokerage services, has set it apart in an industry still dominated by agents with entrenched, offline relationships. The chief executive launched the company alongside Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abou Ghanima, and Aly Rafea.

Making real estate accessible

At first, Nawy struggled to secure those listings. Developers were skeptical about Nawy’s value because it wasn’t big enough to drive traffic to their listings. Brokers, on the other hand, saw Nawy as a competitor.

To build trust, Nawy introduced immediate commission payments, funded upfront, to brokers who made their first transaction on the platform. This shifted sentiment, leading to word-of-mouth growth that has seen over 3,000 brokerages actively using Nawy Partners (its product for brokers), accessing live inventory and flexible payouts.

Additionally, the Cairo-based proptech attracts over a million monthly visitors, with hundreds of developers competing for visibility. About 150 developers cover most of Egypt’s new build market, which is worth around $30 billion, based on 100,000 transactions annually, according to El Beltagy.

Over the last few years, Nawy has expanded beyond listings and brokerage services, evolving into a full-stack real estate ecosystem. This includes Nawy Shares, a fractional ownership product that lets users invest in property with at least $500, making real estate accessible to Egypt’s middle-income population, which has long been priced out.