SmartCrowd’s Strategic Move: Selling Majority Stake
The property technology market in Dubai is evolving massively as one of the largest fintech operating in the Middle East called SmartCrowd, which provides a platform to invest in fractional properties, sells its majority shares to a proptech operating in Egypt called Nawy. This transaction is a turning point not only in the development of SmartCrowd, but also in the evolution of the entire ecosystem of real estate in the city of Dubai, with respect to which the digital revolution has in the shortest time fundamentally changed the nature of investors and platform development.
SmartCrowd was a pioneer (and first mover) when it came to fractional property investment in Dubai, where lower ends of the investment markets were able to take part in property investment with smaller stakes in each purchase. So far, it has supported more than $110 million in property sales and paid out more than $40 million in rents and capital gain to its users to make the property markets more accessible in Dubai.
Nawy’s Expansion into Dubai’s Property Fintech Market
The purchase will be a large part of the expansive Middle Eastern strategy of Nawy, which has already completed a successful round of funding of $52 million Series. Nawy has more than 1 million active monthly users, $3 billion in gross merchandise value, and is growing rapidly on the fronts of digital property listings, mortgage services, and brokerage as well as fractional ownership.
This entry into the market of Dubai further increases the vision of Nawy to be a real estate super-application in the MENA region. The fact that they had previously taken over Cairo-based ROA and rebranded it as Nawy Unlocked made it clear that they aimed at monopolizing acquisition of assets and finalizing services. That goal will be further accelerated by the addition of SmartCrowd to their portfolio, which brings novel advanced fractional ownership capabilities to the picture.
Impact on Dubai’s Real Estate Investment Landscape
SmartCrowd has a long history of real estate alternative property investment in Dubai, especially in fractional ownership and property tokenization. These online investment opportunities have been interesting because they reduce the entry level and enhance the liquidity of such a market that has always been closed to investors with high net-worth.
The Dubai Land Department has also been keen to support the idea of tokenized property assets, and this is a major reason why other businesses such as SmartCrowd are able to grow unperturbed and without fear of retribution due to legal malpractices. As the resources and scale will allow Nawy to do so, it is expected that with the help of it, SmartCrowd will only increase its capabilities and access to a much bigger user base thus, including the UAE not the only region but also the global market.
SmartCrowd is offering among the most popular investment products, Flip, to purchase underpriced real-estate, remodel and resell it in a 15-month period, with an average ROI of 30 percent. In conjunction with the support of Nawy, the platform of such offerings is likely to expand, offering varied investment opportunities to investors, both short and long-term.
Future Prospects for SmartCrowd and Nawy Collaboration
It is seen that the new alliance will unleash many strategic advantages to the two platforms:
- Faster Regional Development: Since SmartCrowd will possess relationships with the local regulatory authorities and an operation structure already established in Dubai, Nawy will be able to fast track its development in the region.
- Innovation in Investment Products: Combined they have the ability to come up with hybrid models where real estate investments occur, combining the traditional, and tokenized investments.
- Improved User Experience: The end-user would experience a smooth onboarding, sharper analytics, and an easier way of obtaining investment information with the help of Nawy and SmartCrowd technologies.
Riz Ahmed, the founder and chief executive of SmartCrowd said that the acquisition would be their next stage in transitioning to a scalable investment platform and want to be the brand of choice when it comes to real estate in the Middle East.
With real estate in Dubai being in the spotlight of the international market, innovations such as SmartCrowd, supported by such regional giants as Nawy, will make the next big step in fractional investing in real property.
