Dubai property fintech SmartCrowd sells majority stake to Egypt's Nawy

SmartCrowd offers fractional ownership in Dubai properties

Last updated: July 10, 2025 | 08:00

Manoj Nair, Business Editor

2 MIN READ

Fractional ownership and property tokenization are becoming popular with UAE investors preferring digital ways.

Narendra Punwaney/Gulf News reader

Dubai: The Dubai property fintech, SmartCrowd, has sold a majority stake to Egypt’s Nawy at a time when new digital ways of property investment are turning popular in the GCC.

SmartCrowd allows individual investors to take fractional ownership in properties through their platform. (Dubai real estate sector has also taken to tokenized investments, with multiple developers having put up units through the Dubai Land Department backed channels. Tokenization too allows smaller investors to come in, take up a certain level of stakes in a property, and benefit from the market’s performance.)

Also Read: Dubai's Emaar launches 'Vyom' to buy, sell homes digitally

“This is a transformative transaction for SmartCrowd, joining forces with Nawy to build the region’s premier proptech ecosystem,” added Riz Ahmed, CEO of SmartCrowd. “This partnership accelerates our transition from startup to scale-up - making us the go-to platform for real estate investment in the Middle East.”

First-movers in Dubai's fractional ownership space

Founded in 2018, SmartCrowd was among the first to offer fractional ownership in Dubai property. Until now, it has overseen $110 million in property transactions and distributed $40 million in rental income and capital gains.

SmartCrowd has ‘successfully’ exited more than 50 properties as of June. One of its offerings, Flip, acquires and renovates undervalued assets to resell within 15 months, with yields of an average 30% RoI.

For Nawy, the stake deal propels it further in its push to be a proptech leader in the Middle East and Africa. It follows Nawy’s recent $52 million, Series A fund raise that saw participation from UAE’s e& Capital. This is part of a $75 million kitty to ‘accelerate its growth across real estate verticals including digital property listings, mortgage financing, brokerage services, and fractional ownership’.

Early this year, the Cairo-based Nawy bought asset management and home finishing startup ROA, relaunching it as 'Nawy Unlocked' and build itself up to be a property ‘super-app’.

Nawy has over 1 million monthly users and $3 billion in gross merchandise value.

Manoj NairBusiness Editor

Manoj Nair, the Gulf News Business Editor, is an expert on property and gold in the UAE and wider region, and these days he is also keeping an eye on stocks as well. Manoj cares a lot for luxury brands and what make them tick, as well as keep close watch on whatever changes the retail industry goes through, whether on the grand scale or incremental. He’s been with Gulf News for 30 years, having started as a Business Reporter. When not into financial journalism, Manoj prefers to see as much of 1950s-1980s Bollywood movies. He reckons the combo is as exciting as it gets, though many will vehemently disagree.