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.
The 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 As 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.
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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.
Additionally, Nawy has developed a mortgage product, “Move Now Pay Later,” designed to allow users to buy through installment plans and financing options in a market where banks rarely offer loans for real estate purchases.
“The real estate market is very lopsided in the sense that most people are buying new build, not resale. We believe enabling this product will cause a bit of a shift,” El Beltagy said of the embedded finance product. “It’s mortgage packaged differently because mortgages are almost non-existent here.” He added that Nawy’s $23 million debt facility backs this offering.
Immune to economic volatility?
These products have diversified Nawy’s revenue streams, which the company claims to have grown more than 50x in dollar terms over the last four years, despite the Egyptian pound losing 69% of its value.
El Beltagy attributes much of this growth to the market’s demand for real estate as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation. While the currency crisis did impact local demand, the influx of expatriate money helped offset the drop.
As a result, the profitable Nawy closed 2024 with over $1.4 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), up from $38 million in 2020.
With fresh capital, Nawy plans to expand beyond Egypt into North Africa and the Middle East, regions rapidly emerging as some of the world’s most promising real estate markets. Nawy is targeting Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as its next markets (in the UAE for instance, platforms like Huspy and Property Finder already have strong traction.)
El Beltagy mentions that the company will buy smaller companies along the way. Recently, it acquired the property management startup ROA and rebranded it as “Nawy Unlocked,” expanding its product offerings.
The Series A round, raised across two tranches, will fund these plans, including advancing product development and integrating AI across Nawy’s processes, according to El Beltagy.
Other notable investors participating in the round include 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 support Nawy as they build the foundation for a modern, tech-driven real estate experience,” said Tidjane Deme, general partner at Partech. “Their team has deep market insights, coupled with ambitious regional expansion plans and exceptional execution, positioning them as the clear proptech champion in Africa and the Middle East.”