There has been a meteoric rise of proptech in the UAE which in many ways is a perfect fit for the emirates as it combines property deals with cutting-edge technology. Real estate and innovation are arguably two fields that our nation understands better than anywhere else on the planet.
That said, I don’t mean to suggest that the emergence of proptech in the UAE is down to luck. On the contrary, its popularity has been facilitated dramatically by our leaders’ long-standing commitment to advanced technology. Given the forward-thinking initiatives that have been put in place, not to mention sustained investment in this area, it’s hardly surprising that our nation is making waves in this fledgling sector.
How does the UAE’s proptech community compares to others around the world?
More than a numbers game
If we limit our focus to size alone, the UAE does not rank among the world’s biggest proptech markets. When it comes to sheer numbers, nations such as the United States, United Kingdom, China, Japan and Germany dominate the global stage.
Of course, this is to be expected. Home to approximately 10 million people, when it comes to scale, the UAE’s proptech sector is hardly likely to rank alongside countries whose populations number in the hundreds of millions and even billions. No, the area in which the UAE really shines is proptech-related innovation.
Again, success in this regard has been made possible by our government’s forward-thinking approach to investment. Initiatives such as Dubai Future Accelerators and blockchain technology championed by the Dubai Land Department have enabled UAE -based proptech platforms to leverage cutting-edge infrastructure, helping them to gain a commercial advantage and forge strong relationships with global tech giants.
This emphasis on collaboration, coupled with top-down encouragement of experimentation, has empowered the UAE’s proptech community to stay ahead of the curve in terms of innovation.
Strong fundamentals
On a broader level, our nation’s well-established (and booming) real estate sector is providing fertile ground for proptech pioneers. Put simply, the Emirates is the perfect environment for companies which are working to develop scalable technologies that serve to drive adoption and enhance the customer experience.
And while the UAE might not yet rank among the largest proptech markets in the world, its performance in this space has nevertheless been impressive. Proptech startups across the Emirates have raised more than $100 million in funding during the past five years, according to Zoom Property. What’s more, as of February of this year, our nation was home to more than half (55%) of new proptech ventures in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region – and analysts expect this figure to grow further over the coming years.
While we may not be the largest proptech market on the planet, when it comes to per-capita impact, we are certainly punching way above our weight.
A bright future
As a technology that lives online, it can be difficult to gauge the performance of proptech platforms when using physical geographic locations as delineators. After all, this sector has the power to democratise real estate on a global level, and if this potential is realised, national borders may no longer be as important to investors as they have been historically.
But regardless of how this landscape evolves over the longer term, contemporary industry-wide projections look extremely encouraging. The value of the global proptech market, for instance, is on course to reach $86.5 billion by 2032. If accurate, this would entail a staggering compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.8% during the forecast period, according to Future Market Insights.
Given the extent to which our nation is already contributing to innovation within the sector, few countries are likely to have a greater influence over the long-term direction of proptech.
