How Nawy is Using Tech to Unlock Real Estate Investment for the Masses

In July of this year, the collective ears of Egypt’s entrepreneurial ecosystem pricked with the news that Cairo-based proptech startup, Nawy Real Estate, received its first external funding. These announcements are part and parcel of the ecosystem’s news cycle, but what made it stand up and take notice is the source of the investment: the Sawiris Family office and angel investor and group CEO of Etisalat, Hatem Dowidar, stood as the two highlight names of the undisclosed figure.

What made these titans of industry invest? Well, Nawy isn't new. Since 2016, the startup’s five-strong founding team have been working hard to fill a gap in the real estate market, a chasm that exists between Egyptians looking to the real estate market for secure and safe investment and the increasing number of developers. It’s an issue that CEO, Mostafa El Beltagy, fell foul of himself. When he looked to invest in property, he found little info beyond numbers of rooms and compound amenities.

“How will this property appreciate over time?” he asked himself. “What kind of track does this developer have?” Essentially, the ultimate question was, “Is my money safe?”

With their end-to-end tech-powered platform, Nawy aims to answer these and many other questions, allowing users to make more informed and safer decisions with their money.

Seems simple, right? We sat down with Beltagy and Nawy CBDO, Ahmed Rafea, and found out the answer is a resounding ‘no’, as the team found more than a few hurdles in a sector that has often been accused of being impervious to innovation.