Dubai PropTech Keyper raises $6.5 million in seed round to fund global expansion

Dubai-based real estate technology startup Keyper has raised $6.5 million in a seed funding round, which it will use to expand its operations and geographic footprint from next year, with a focus on overseas markets.

The investment round was led by UAE-based early-stage venture capital fund Access Bridge and one-man office Vivium Holdings, with participation from Dubai Middle East Venture Partners and Jabbar Internet Group, key players in the real estate ecosystem, and a group of business angels that also participated. – the company announced on Tuesday.

In 2024, Keyper will begin expanding into Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, said co-founder and chief strategy officer Walid Shihabi National.

Based on the portfolios of its existing client base, it will explore other global real estate investment centers including London, Istanbul and New York.

Our mission is to develop technology that will bring real estate in the region to the same level of digitalization as other global hubs such as London and New York, starting with the removal of checks, digitizing the rental payment lifecycle in the UAE and reporting investments through our app for investors, he said.

Keyper will also address the increasing digitization of the property investment and management space, with trends in the sector and user adoption expected to continue, Shihabi said.

Rent payment will move towards easier and more manageable digital payment methods, with the option of embedded payments as an option. When it comes to real estate investment trends, we believe that access to current transaction data will enable much more effective tools to help private investors make decisions, he said.

Digitizing payments will enable innovative financial solutions to manage and optimize landlords’ ROI and cash flow, and make renting for tenants seamless and more affordable.

PropTech is the application of technology to the real estate industry to create an ecosystem that covers everything from property management and reservations to construction and analytics, largely accessible via a mobile app.

The global PropTech market is expected to exceed $133 billion in 2032, up from an estimated $35 billion in 2023, with compound annual growth of 16 percent, according to the latest data from Precedence Research.

This latest financing significantly accelerates our growth trajectory, enabling us to deliver a seamless, transparent and data-driven real estate experience to all stakeholders, said Omar Abu Innab, co-founder and CEO of Keyper.

Keyper, which has added more than 2,100 condominiums in Dubai worth about Dh4.5 billion ($1.23 billion) to its platform, as well as more than 800 landlords, is also harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to improve its business, says Mr Keyper . Shihabi said.

Given that efficiency is a key goal for our property management team, we use various forms of artificial intelligence to increase their productivity, he said.

We also use artificial intelligence in our tenant screening software, which supports both our property management operations and eligibility for our rental assistance products, Rent Now [and] pay the rent later and in advance.

Artificial intelligence has already been used in enterprises, but its acceleration has been greatly accelerated with the advent of generative artificial intelligence, a highly conversational version of the technology that has been hailed as disruptive to industries.

The integration of digital technology into the real estate sector reflects our belief in the transformative power of technology, said Issa Aghabi, managing partner at Access Bridge Ventures.

Updated: October 24, 2023, 7:00 am