For decades, buying a property in Egypt has meant browsing a piece of scattered real estate market, relying on personal networks, dealing with commission-driven brokers, and facing developers rather than meeting customer needs.
In 2019, Mostafa El Beltagy, Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abou Ghanima and Aly Rafea founded Nawy, bringing 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 company Parttech Africa, validating its model of combining real estate listings with brokerage services.
The Series A also includes $23 million in debt financing from Egypt's top banks, totaling $75 million, one of the largest Series A financings for startups in Africa.
Co-founder and CEO El Beltagy's journey into Proptech begins with personal frustration. After several years of working in companies in multiple countries, he wanted to invest in Egypt's real estate, a market that many people see as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation.
However, the generality of suggestions for lack of transparency and bias becomes a clear problem when he navigates the process during the purchase of property.
“I can’t look at the market and understand what’s going on there except for developers who take their brochures and ask their salespeople questions, which is very efficient,” the CEO recalls. “In this field, everyone is motivated to push you one way or another.”
These challenges led El Beltagy to establish Nawy to help people buy, sell, invest, fund and manage property. Its model combines attribute listing platforms with brokerage services, allowing it to stand out in an industry dominated by agents who are still dominated by strong offline relationships.
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Book nowAt first, Nawy worked hard to secure these lists. Developers are skeptical about the value of Neville because they are not big enough to attract traffic to the list. On the other hand, the agent sees Nawy as a competitor.
To build trust, Navi made immediate committee payments with a pre-funded committee payment and to brokers who made their first transactions on the platform. This shifting sentiment led to a growth in word of mouth, using Nawy Partners (which is a product for brokers) has actively gained more than 3,000 brokers, thus gaining real-time inventory and flexible spending.
Additionally, Cairo-based Proptech attracts over a million monthly visitors, with hundreds of developers competing for visibility. According to El Beltagy, about 150 developers cover most of Egypt's new construction market, which is worth about $30 billion, based on 100,000 transactions per year.
Over the past few years, Nawy has gone beyond listing and brokerage services to develop into a full-stack real estate generator system. This includes Nawy Stock, a fractional ownership product that enables users to invest in properties for at least $500, which makes accessible real estate for Egypt's middle-income population that has long been priced.
Additionally, Nawy has developed a mortgage product, “pay now,” designed to allow users to purchase in a market where banks rarely offer real estate purchase loans through installment plans and financing options.
“The real estate market is very unbalanced from the sense that most people buy new builds instead of resales. We think enabling the product will lead to some changes,” said El Beltagy. “The way mortgages are packaged is different because mortgages are barely present.” He added that Nawy’s $23 million debt agency supports the product.
The products have a diversified source of revenue for Navigh, and despite the loss of 69% of its value by the Egyptian pound, the company claims to have grown more than 50 times in US dollars over the past four years.
El Beltagy attributes much of this growth to market demand for real estate, a hedge against inflation and currency depreciation. Although the currency crisis did affect local demand, the influx of foreign currencies helped offset the decline.
As a result, Nawy closed down the total value of goods (GMV) in 2024, with more than $1.4 billion, up from $38 million in 2020.
Nawy's new capital plan expanded to Egypt's expansion to North Africa and the Middle East, which quickly became some of the world's most promising real estate markets. Nawy uses Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as its next market (for example, platforms like Huspy and Property Finder have already had a strong appeal.)
El Beltagy mentioned that the company will acquire smaller companies in the process. Recently, it acquired the property management startup ROA and renamed it "Nawy Unlock", expanding its product offering.
According to El Beltagy, the Series A round will fund these programs, including advancement of product development and AI that integrates Nawy's processes.
Other notable investors participating in this round include Development Partners International Fund, E& Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Hof Capital, March Capital Investments, Outliers, Outliers, Plup and Ploine, Shorooq Partners, Venturesouq and Verod-Beakeple Africa Ventures.
“We are delighted to support Nawy in laying the foundation for a modern, technology-driven real estate experience,” said Tidjane Deme, general partner at Parttech Parttech. “Their team has deep market insights, coupled with ambitious regional expansion plans and outstanding execution, positioning them as a clear champion of advocates in Africa and the Middle East.”