For decades, buying a home in Egypt was anything but easy. It meant depending on personal connections, navigating a fragmented market, dealing with pushy brokers, and rarely getting a full picture of your options. That’s the problem Mostafa El Beltagy set out to fix. In 2019, after a frustrating attempt to invest in Egyptian property himself, El Beltagy co-founded Nawy, a startup designed to simplify real estate in the region.
Fast forward to today, and Nawy has secured a massive $52 million Series A round, led by Partech Africa, bringing its total funding to $75 million—a record-setting figure for an African proptech startup.
This funding milestone also includes $23 million in debt financing from Egypt’s top banks, backing a new product designed to ease access to mortgages. Nawy’s approach blends a real estate listings platform with brokerage and embedded finance tools, creating a full-stack ecosystem for property buyers, sellers, and investors.
El Beltagy’s leap into proptech was fueled by firsthand experience. After working for global companies like Vodafone, he returned to Egypt with plans to invest in real estate, a popular hedge in a country grappling with inflation and currency instability. But what he found was a maze of biased sales tactics and scattered listings.
At the time, prospective buyers had no centralized way to browse inventory. Most had to visit developers one by one, picking up brochures and dealing with salespeople motivated by commission, not customer needs. Seeing a massive gap, El Beltagy teamed up with Abdel-Azim Osman, Ahmed Rafea, Mohamed Abou Ghanima, and Aly Rafea to launch Nawy.
Their mission was clear: to build a tech-powered, transparent real estate platform that put the user first.
Building Trust in a Skeptical Market
Initially, it wasn’t easy to convince Egypt’s real estate industry. Developers didn’t see the value of listing on a small platform, and brokers saw Nawy as a threat.
To flip the narrative, Nawy introduced immediate commission payouts, paid upfront to brokers who closed their first deals through the platform. That incentive sparked word-of-mouth growth. Today, over 3,000 brokerages use Nawy Partners, gaining access to live inventory and flexible commissions.
Nawy now attracts over 1 million monthly visitors, offering listings from more than 150 developers and serving a new build market worth around $30 billion annually.
Beyond listings and broker tools, Nawy has grown into a complete real estate ecosystem. One of its most popular offerings is Nawy Shares, a fractional ownership product that allows users to invest in real estate with as little as $500. For Egypt’s middle-income earners—long excluded from the property market—that’s a game-changer.
Nawy also developed “Move Now Pay Later,” a financing product that lets users buy property on installment plans. Traditional mortgages are rare in Egypt, so this embedded finance model, backed by the $23 million debt facility, gives buyers a new path to ownership.
According to El Beltagy, “This product isn’t a typical mortgage—it’s more accessible, and we’ve packaged it to meet real-world needs in a market where mortgage systems barely exist.”
Scaling Despite Economic Headwinds
Nawy’s ability to thrive during economic uncertainty is one of its most impressive feats. Over the past four years, Egypt’s currency has lost nearly 70% of its value, yet Nawy’s dollar-based revenue grew 50x during the same period.
Why? Real estate remains one of the few safe investment options for Egyptians—and even more so for expats. While local demand dipped due to inflation, expatriate investors helped balance the scales.
In 2024, Nawy processed more than $1.4 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), up from just $38 million in 2020. And it’s profitable.
With fresh capital in hand, Nawy is now eyeing regional expansion. El Beltagy says the company is targeting Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, where real estate markets are heating up. In the UAE, for example, Nawy will face incumbents like Huspy and Property Finder, but its full-stack approach could offer a key advantage.
To strengthen its position, Nawy has already begun acquiring smaller players, including property management firm ROA, now rebranded as Nawy Unlocked. The acquisition allows the startup to broaden its services even further.
In addition to scaling into new markets, the company plans to invest in AI tools to improve user experience and streamline backend operations.
Backing this vision are major investors including e& Capital, Plug and Play, Shorooq Partners, Nclude Fund, Endeavor Catalyst, and Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures, among others.
Partech’s general partner Tidjane Deme says Nawy’s execution and regional insight make it the top contender to lead proptech across Africa and the Middle East.
