Fresh from new round, Egypt’s proptech Nawy plans full-suite offering

The startup began life in 2016 as an artificial intelligence-driven property listing and has grown to offer a range of services. The Sawiris family, Egypt's wealthiest family, led a $5 million seed round to support their growth after connecting 40,000 buyers and sellers last year.

NaWY is going to introduce a mortgage service for pre-owned property to serve a market that is mostly ignored by traditional lenders.

The mortgage financing plan is part of the startup's strategy to introduce new products that are aligned with clients' needs, according to Mostafa El-Beltagy.

Most of the banks in Egypt prefer to support buyers of new property over those looking for pre-owned ones. Nawy now wants to bridge the financing gap for pre-owned mortgages.

The resale market is mostly cash. El-Betagy said that they want to build for the resale market and let people pay in installments rather than pay fully upfront.

NaWY's growth has been supported by investments in its internal and outward-facing technologies, including some that use machine learning to pair clients with property. The startup uses artificial intelligence to manage its sales force of more than 200 people by matching them with suitable property, and to provide market insights that speed up the closing process.

The proptech plans to use the data it collects to offer real estate advisory services, forge funding partnerships, and provide insights into the trends and other market factors.

We can start to answer some fundamental questions once we have visibility on the rental market, the primary markets for resale property, and the forecast of the appreciation. Which properties are overpriced? El-Beltagy said that they can start to give real financial advice by using all of that information.

We are definitely going to go into rentals and property management within the next few years. El-Beltagy said that it would complete the suite by offering core real estate products.

The booming property market in Egypt is one of the fastest growing segments of the country's economy and is a safe hedge against inflation. The construction sector accounted for 4.9% of Egypt's GDP during the financial year.

Beltagy, a former executive at Vodacom and a member of the board of directors of NaWY, founded the company with other members. The company changed its name to Cooing Real Estate in June 2021.

The founders injected $200,000 into the startup, which averaged a growth rate of 30% a year until 2021, when it shot up 400%, with its gross merchandise value climbing to $200 million, up from $40 million the previous year.