Kuwait’s Ajar Online has raised an investment by BECO Capital & Kuwait-based Sharq Ventures. The startup did not disclose size of investment but the average ticket size of the the recent investments where BECO has led or joined a round has been way more than a million dollar. So we can assume that it’s a million-dollar round.
Founded in 2015, Ajar Online is a cloud-based service that helps landlords and real-estate agents collect rent online and manage their properties. It streamlines the rent payment and collection process via SMS and email which gives tenants the comfort of paying their rent anytime, anywhere, within 60 seconds using different payment methods including debit/credit cards, KNET or Sadad. Apart from that, Ajar Online provides its clients with different property management tools to make it easy for them to manage their properties and use analytical data to make better decisions.
“We aim to be the leading platform for property management and online payments in the real estate market, creating the tools to make the industry better and smarter, through using latest technology and security measures. We envision real-estate investors and owners, confidently making the right decisions about their investment and leases. We help landlords to easily manage multiple properties and rent collections anytime and anywhere, reducing the need for hundreds of hours of manual office work, and saving thousands of dollars,” said Shaheen AlKhudari, Ajar Online’s Co-founder & CEO.
Shaheen also said that the startup will use the investment to support Ajar Online’s growth in the region by improving and upgrading the existing services and building new tools for the landlords. The Kuwait-headquartered startup that has representatives in UAE & Saudi also plans to increase its workforce using the investment and provide their services at a global scale by early 2018.
Yousef Hammad, Managing Partner at BECO Capital said: “Ajar Online has merely begun to scratch the surface of digitizing and advancing the rental industry, the opportunity in this space is tremendous. Shaheen and his team represent what we look for in teams; hard work, domain expertise and extremely passionate about their business, their industry and their region.
Hamoud S Al-Sabah, Partner at Sharq Ventures said: “Ajar Online is leading the new wave of property management solutions, using the next generation of technology to create tranquility for landlords and innovative customer experience for tenants. “We’ve been watching Shaheen’s activities since he was a student in the business college, and his work in the private sector in Kuwait, and if he was determined… things start happening with a success story!”
It’s the second round of investment raised by Ajar Online. The first one also came from BECO Capital in December last year.
FinTech was the top vertical in terms of total investments raised by the regional startups in the previous quarter and with Ajar Online’s investment, it seems that the trend will continue.
