If you entered a Dubai bank to apply for a mortgage in 2020, your chances will spend months buried in bureaucracy or face a huge price discrepancy when it came to the listings. Such experiences have led Jad Antoun to start Huspy, a start -up how to how people in the UAE buy digital homes.
For the past five years, the company has become one of the largest Proptechs in the UAE and expanded to Spain, providing digital tools to find housing and acquiring mortgages.
Huspy has just closed a series of B $ 59 million B to double businesses across the Middle East and expand its European presence, led by existing Balderton Capital investor.
In 2022, Huspy increased over $ 40 million in series A and an extension From Who’s Who of Global Investors, including Balderton Capital, Founders Fund and Peak XV Partners (former Sequoia Capital India & Sea).
Other investors include Exborder Partners, Turmeric Capital, Cotu Ventures, from Ventures, Dara Management and Ke Partners. The new chapter will fuel the continued development of Huspy in the UAE and Spain and support its launch in Saudi Arabia, Antoun told TechCrunch in an interview.
This investment is important because PropTech has been a tough sector in the last two years. Companies such as OPENDOOR and COMPASS have struggled to maintain valuations and profitability among higher US interest rates. Many newly established businesses have also been burned through cash and fought.
Huspy has “created a repetitive and effective Playbook for city launching and the rhythm of innovation – especially around AI tools for brokers and agents – continues to increase the bar for the whole industry,” said Rana Yared, a general partner at Balderton Capital.
Antoun said he learned through his first market in the UAE how to target pain points in the mortgage process. It was partnership with top banks and introduced digital advances to a platform connecting brokers and borrowers.
Within three years, the company says it occupied 30% of the mortgage market (25% in Dubai, one of the most active real estate markets in the world). This attraction and the exclusive banking relations built as a result became a springboard for expansion.
In 2022, he began escalating in Spain, a fragmented real estate market with more than 100,000 registered agents, according to Antoun.
Instead of having an inventory such as Ibuyer models or acting as a traditional intercession, Huspy manages a network -based model in all UAE and Spain. Independent agents use the platform to access real estate drivers from markets such as Finder Property and Idautista, while Huspy provides CRM tools, trading support and built -in mortgages through its bank partners.
It is a low -headed approach that looks like Uber for real estate more than Zillow.
Antoun, previously in the Dubai investment team based in Dubai VC Beco Capital, and Deputy Managing Director Ziad nassarWhich drives the European expansion of Huspy, believes that the company has found a recurring model that will be difficult to reproduce: Enter medium -sized cities with high volumes and low efficiency of agent, creation of bids through market corporate relationships, top -line platforms.
In less than a year, Huspy claims to be one of the first three real estate companies in Valencia. It already operates in six cities throughout Spain, where it requires over 20x annual growth.
“I think it will be difficult for someone to compete with the product of mortgage loans especially in both markets,” Antoun said. “We are just here more. And in Spain, we have better performance.”
Antoun reports that the start has helped over 25,000 people buy houses in all its markets and have increased revenue of over 10x from 2022. The platform, which earns revenue through supply and success fees, usually from real estate agents and banks, facilitates more than $ 7 billion.
Over the next four years, the company plans to start in most major cities throughout Europe and the Middle East, an area currently in Proptech, with another major player, Nawy, also increasing a significant round this year. Huspy plans to operate in more than 10 cities by the end of 2025.
