Dubai-based PropTech Hotdesk raises $1M Seed
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The UAE-based PorpTech and workspace booking platform Hotdesk has successfully raised $1M in its latest funding round. The Seed round was led by led by Virtuzone, a leading office space facilitator, and recorded the participation of AlZayani Investments, a key real estate group with a significant commercial property footprint in Western Europe and North America, through their Venture Capital arm Zayani Venture Capital (ZVC). High Profile Angel Investors also participated in this round in including Youssef Salem - Swvl’s CFO, Khaled AlFahim Board Member in Abu Dhabi’s Chamber of Commerce.
Founded by Mohamed Khaled, who was recently involved in Swvl’s $1.5Bn SPAC merger as Director of Finance, Hotdesk set forth to disrupt the Real Estate industry by providing flexible, on-demand access to workspaces, hot desks, private offices, and meeting rooms. In doing so, HotDesks has match untapped revenue generation opportunities in underutilized facilities with market opportunities serving the booming wave of hybrid, remote, and freelance professionals.
Real Estate startups in MENA have observed a 30% YoY growth in number of deals closed in 2021. This latest investment in HotDesk marks the 4th highest funding round of the year and is the only ProPtech focused on nontraditional (shared) economy ranking in the top 10 funding rounds in Real Estate since 2020.
The proprietary technology creates an opportunity for businesses with underutilized workspaces to sublet their vacant office space and generate additional revenue. Hotdesk’s hosts range from coworking spaces, shared offices, hotel business centers, and vacant furnished commercial office spaces. Sharing his vision of the future Founder and CEO Mohamed Khaled elaborated “We are amidst a pivotal point in history - where work and workspaces are democratized. Hybrid models are the future, and Hotdesk falls right in between giving the comfort of working from home, yet being able to socialize, be equipped, and without the daunting corporate office experience. Businesses have become smarter and leaner post-covid, and no one wants a 5-year unfurnished lease anymore. Plug-and-play scalable workspace solutions are the way forward.”
Hotdesk runs an asset-free model where it does not own or lease any of its workspaces but rather consolidates the scattered market of empty commercial real estate on one platform. Soft launch to date, the Company has generated $100k+ in gross bookings, 10k+ hours of bookings, 1.5k+ users, and 3,000+ rooms and areas from 300+ hosts across 55 cities in EMEA. The Proptech startup plans to utilize its newly acquired funds to support its launch in the UAE, Egypt and Spain.
In light of this investment, Chairman and Co-founder of Virtuzone Neil Petch concluded “Exploring innovative solutions that can advance entrepreneurship has always been one of our fundamental objectives. We see great potential in the workspace solutions that Hotdesk brings, and these align with our goals to remove barriers to entrepreneurship and make it a lot easier to start and do business in the UAE and abroad.”
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