Dubai, UAE — Property Finder, the MENA region’s leading real estate portal, has struck a US $250 million debt financing agreement with Ares Credit Funds (Ares) as part of its expansion strategy. The deal marks a significant step in the company’s efforts to scale its digital-property ecosystem across the UAE and beyond.
“This financing marks another important milestone in our journey to build the region’s most trusted and intelligent property platform,” said Michael Lahyani, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Property Finder.
“The support of world-class financial partners underlines the strength of our business and the scale of the opportunity ahead. This transaction allows us to accelerate our growth in the region through investments in product innovation, AI-driven solutions, marketing & branding and strategic partnerships.”
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Ares partner and co-head of European Credit, Michael Dennis, commented:
“We are pleased to support Property Finder as it enters its exciting next chapter of strategic growth. Property Finder has built a category-leading business with a demonstrable track record of execution, profitability, and innovation under the leadership of strong management. We look forward to working closely with Michael and his team, as well as Property Finder’s other investors, as they continue building out a differentiated offering.”
Property Finder claims that between 2020 and 2024 the group delivered sustained revenue growth, posting more than a 40 % CAGR. In the UAE alone, core real-estate revenues grew from US $30 million in 2021 to US $117 million in 2024; in H1 2025 they reached US $73 million, with an EBITDA margin above 60 %. The platform operates a “one-brand, one-tech-stack” model, which the company says underpins its profitability and scalability.
The transaction follows earlier strategic investments by private-equity firms such as Permira and Blackstone in Property Finder, reinforcing investor confidence in both the company and the UAE’s technology-enabled real-estate ecosystem.
Rise of Real-Estate Tech in the UAE
The UAE’s PropTech-and-real-estate-software market is gaining momentum. Recent market research estimates the UAE’s PropTech market size at approximately AED 2.24 billion (US $609 million) in 2024 and forecasts it to reach AED 5.69 billion (US $1.55 billion) by 2030 — a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 17.5 %. Separate data show the UAE real-estate-software segment reached US $64.1 million in 2023 and is projected to grow to US $173.7 million by 2030.
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Against this backdrop, the financing deal for Property Finder signals that real-estate-technology companies in the UAE are entering a more mature phase — where investment is not just in listings or portals, but in AI-driven analytics, smart-building integration, digital brokerage platforms, and full-cycle property platforms.
The UAE government’s push for digitisation of real-estate services, block-chain registries, smart-city infrastructure and enhanced transparency is creating fertile conditions for tech-led companies to scale. Against high urbanisation rates and rapid real-estate turnover, platforms that streamline transaction flow, data management and user experience stand to capture meaningful market share.
In this environment, Property Finder’s debt raise positions it to invest in further product innovation, expand across emirates, and integrate more value-added services — potentially creating a moat in the region’s real-estate-tech value chain.
Implications for the Real-Estate Sector
For developers, brokers and asset managers, this deal underscores how technology is becoming a differentiator in real estate — not just for marketing properties but for analytics, operations, customer engagement and transaction efficiency. Real-estate-tech firms are increasingly seen not as peripherals, but as strategic partners to core property businesses.
For investors, the expanding PropTech space offers an alternative avenue in the real-estate ecosystem: rather than buying physical assets alone, one can invest in underlying technology platforms that serve multiple developers and markets, providing potentially higher scalability and recurring-revenue models.
Outlook
With this financing in place, Property Finder enters its next growth chapter at a time when the UAE real-estate-tech market is poised for expansion. If the projected digital transformation of the property sector plays out, companies that capture data, deliver user-experience advantages and integrate broadly across the ecosystem could generate outsized value.
As one of the largest property-portal players in the region, Property Finder is now leveraging its platform for growth and innovation — potentially raising the bar for how real estate is transacted, managed and marketed across the UAE and MENA region.
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