Africa’s largest proptech company Nawy has made its first move into the Gulf region by acquiring a majority stake in Dubai-based SmartCrowd, a regulated platform offering fractional real estate investment.
The deal marks a geographic and strategic expansion for Nawy, which recently raised $52million in Series A funding, and signals growing regional consolidation in the digital real estate sector.
SmartCrowd, founded in 2018, has facilitated over $110million in transactions and serves investors in more than 130 countries. It has successfully exited more than 50 properties as of June 2025 with one of its flagship offerings Flip – which acquires and renovates undervalued assets to resell within 15 months – yielding an average 30 per cent ROI as of June 2025.
The UAE’s real estate investment sector is projected to reach $33billion by 2030, driven by tokenisation, fractional ownership,and increased cross-border participation, which Nawy says makes it a prime inflection point for a regional push.
“SmartCrowd’s platform gives us a proven investment engine built on trust, performance and regulatory strength,” said Mostafa El-Beltagy, CEO of Nawy. “The perfect match for Nawy’s tech-first approach to real estate. Together, we’re unlocking a new era of seamless property investment across MENA: data-driven, accessible, and built for today’s digital investor.”
Riz Ahmed, CEO of SmartCrowd, also added: “This is a transformative transaction for SmartCrowd, joining forces with Nawy to build the region’s premier proptech ecosystem. With strong alignment in vision and culture, this partnership accelerates our transition from startup to scale-up, making us the go-to platform for real estate investment in the Middle East.”
Nawy’s platform spans several real estate services, including home financing, fractional ownership, asset enhancemen and a B2B brokerage network. The addition of SmartCrowd expands its reach into regulated property investment.
According to the company, Nawy has attracted over one million monthly users and facilitated $3billion in gross merchandise value to date.
