BACKING BUYERS

Jad Antoun, Cofounder and CEO of Huspy, has raised 45 million in less than three years for his end-to-end property-buying tech startup. With three new acquisitions under his belt, he’s now looking to Europe for expansion.

- JASON LASRADO

In June 2022, proptech startup Huspy raised one of the largest Series A funds round the Middle East has ever seen, raking in $37 million from global and regional investors, including Sequoia Capital India, the Founders Fund, Fifth Wall, Chimera Capital, Breyer Capital, Venture Friends, COTU, VentureSouq, and BY Venture Partners. As of November 2022, the company had raised more than $45 million.

This is an impressive accolade considering that Huspy was launched less than three years ago in the U.A.E. in the second half of 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and national lockdowns. But Jad Antoun, cofounder and CEO of Huspy, had already spent some time zeroing in on his idea to digitize property buying. "Real estate is the largest asset class in the world, the biggest market size available. The opportunity is tremendous," he explains. "But still, in this asset class, we don't have an equivalent to Amazon or Facebook or Google, even though the market is already there. And we believe that we're in a good position to create a new category, at least in EMEA." The U.A.E.'s real estate market has been booming in recent years. According to JLL, in the U.A.E.'s residential sector, around 6,500 units were added to Dubai's stock in Q2 2022 while in Abu Dhabi nearly 1,300 units were completed. Demand remains strong for prime residential properties, especially across waterfront developments. In Dubai, property prices and rents increased 11% and 19% respectively in Q2 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.

Proptech companies are not new in the region-leading players propertyfinder.ae and Bayut.com were launched in 2007 and 2008, respectively.