Does Mena’s proptech sector still have room for growth?

Does Mena’s proptech sector still have room for growth?

Proptech, short for property technology, is steadily gaining momentum within the real estate sector across the Middle East and North Africa region (Mena), with a growing number of startups joining the fold, looking to change the way of doing business in the wider industry and acclimating it to the digital world.

Despite the ample market opportunity, startups in property technology (proptechs) face a unique set of challenges when making inroads into the market, ultimately limiting innovation and competition. 

Among these challenges is the difficulty of acquiring funds, especially at the earliest stages of the startup’s development as well as limited access to data, as more established players can be hesitant to share data with fledgling companies. This, eventually, makes a startup-corporate collaboration very hard to achieve. 

One space that is found to be more acceptable and considered less risky for both industry stakeholders and investors is property listing.

“Many founders were trying to build products that tackle different parts of the real estate value chain but were struggling to secure relevant data. They changed directions and started placing their focus on listing and search services as a result,” says Khaled Zaidan, founder of Saudi Arabia-based VC, Alkanz.

According to the Wamda Research Lab, investments in