Dubai-based property management services startup for short-term rentals ‘MaisonPrive’ raises $4 million

MaisonPrive, a Dubai-based startup that manages properties for short-term rentals has raised $4 million in investment, the startup announced yesterday. The investment came from a private strategic investor from the hospitality industry.

Founded by Rami Shamaa and Paul Mallee a year ago, the startup that likes to call itself a ‘virtual hotel’ manages luxury residential properties on behalf of their owners, renting them for short-term rentals through different online booking platforms including Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and HomeAway.

MaisonPrive offers three options to work with property owners; first one being management of the furnished properties on behalf of the owner for short-term rentals and charge them a percentage of revenue as management fee, second, furnishing the apartments using rental furniture and then managing the property for short-term rentals charging the percentage of the revenue and rent of the furniture, and the last option is MaisonPrive renting the property from the owner to  offer it in the market for short-term rentals.

The startup provides all the to help owners earn money from their properties without them doing anything at all. The services include marketing management, price optimization, guest screening, property management, guest communication and financial management. MaisonPrive claims that the owners can generate 30-40% more revenue using their services compared to what they would earn on their own.

Paul Mallee, the co-founder and Managing Director of MaisonPrive told MENAbytes that they plan to use the investment to further develop their technology and expand their team before exploring the option of going to markets beyond Dubai.

The startup is also working on its customer support platform that will allow them to drive ancillary revenues and engage their guests, Paul added.

MaisonPrive selects the properties on the basis of their location and luxury to meet the rising demand for high-quality short-term accommodation in Dubai that received about 16 million tourists last year.

“We want to be part of Dubai’s competitiveness mix, meeting rising demand for high-quality accommodation supply as the business and leisure tourism segments scale,” said Rami Shamaa. “We select the apartments and villas we manage on the basis of location and luxury, so they are always close to major transport nodes and visitor experiences, with on-site access to gyms and pools,” he added.

Earlier this year, another similar Dubai-based startup HiGuests had also raised investment.