Egyptian PropTech start-up Partment raises $1.5m

Partment, an Egyptian PropTech start-up that offers co-owned second homes, has raised $1.5 million in its early stage funding round.

The pre-seed round to help the company start operations was co-led by NClude, a FinTech fund backed by three of Egypt’s largest national banks and managed by Dubai-based venture capital company Global Ventures.

Abu Dhabi-based Plus Venture Capital, a Middle East and North Africa-focused venture capital company that has made more than 200 investments in the region since 2010, co-led the funding round. A group of angel investors, including tech executives and real estate industry veterans, also participated.

Established earlier this year, Partment will use the funding to enhance its Beta version online platform and deploy its minimum viable product (MVP) in Egypt.

“Partment is a new concept in Egypt, and we believe it will change how people buy and use real estate in the local and international market,” said Partment chief executive and co-founder Nadim Nagui.

“We are very proud to be backed by leading investors who understand and support our vision.”

PropTech refers to the use of technology and innovation within the real estate industry. Investment volume in PropTech companies worldwide grew to a peak of $24.3 billion in 2021 from $600 million in 2010, according to Statista research.

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Partment — which means 'part' of an apartment — allows people to co-own a second home with up to seven others, while it handles the management and maintenance of the property. Through a booking system, each co-owner can reserve a quota of 41 nights.

Unlike timeshare, co-owners fully own a portion of real estate and are able to sell their shares after 12 months.

"Our first launch market will be the Red Sea region in Egypt, but, of course, we are keeping our eyes open for other preferred destinations," Mr Nagui told The National.

Any property besides a primary residence is considered a second home, and Partment is focused on holiday or remote work use, Mr Nagui said.

Partment was co-founded by Mr Nagui, chief operations officer Ahmed Raggal and chief technical officer Chinmaya Das.

Mr Nagui and Mr Raggal spent several years at Uber, leading expansion and operations in the Middle East and Europe. Mr Das has worked in software development at companies in India, Singapore and the Netherlands, including Booking.com and Amazon.

“We are dedicated to accelerating FinTech innovation and driving financial inclusion by backing global-mindset founders, and are delighted to have led Partment’s latest funding round,” said Eslam Darwish, founding general partner of NClude.

NClude’s previous investments include financial app Khazna, consumer FinTech platform Lucky, AgriTech start-up Mozare3 and electronic payments provider Paymob.

Partment’s “innovative new concept of second home co-ownership will bolster the demand and attract many homebuyers and disrupt the real estate industry in Egypt and beyond”, said Hasan Haider, managing partner at Plus Venture Capital.

Plus Venture Capital previously invested in Egyptian start-ups SubsBase and Thundr.

Partment’s funding was one of several pre-seed rounds raised by Egyptian start-ups this month, including e-commerce start-up Mazaya with $5m and investment banking marketplace Exits.me with $1m.

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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