UAE-based property portal Bayut.com said it has closed a $20-million Series C venture round, a mere four months after its Series B funding that added $9 million to the website’s coffers.

The funding comes from one of Bayut’s current investors, a fund which focuses on frontier and emerging markets with over $1 billion in assets under management.

The investment has gone into Bayut’s parent company Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG), formerly Zamzama Property Group, which also controls Pakistan’s market leader Zameen.com.

Over the last year, Bayut has seen rapid growth in all key metrics including traffic and paying agencies, as well as expanding its team manifold to take on ambitious regional expansion goals, said a senior official.

"The new investment would be a major asset for the portal as it moves towards the market leader position in the UAE, as well as establishing a firm presence across the Middle East," remarked
Bayut CEO Haider Ali Khan.

“Bayut has been a strong player in the emirates from the get-go, and with this new funding we’re perfectly poised to further propel the portal and establish an equally strong presence in the rest of the region,” he stated.

Bayut’s team includes several international property portal veterans, such as SeLoger.com co-founder Gilles Blanchard, current SeLoger CEO Roland Tripard and Mitula Group chairman Simon Baker, who has previously headed the REA Group as well as iProperty Group.

“We have the top minds of the global property portal industry on board, some of the world’s most advanced proprietary scalable technology, and ample resources, all of which will contribute to the achievement of our goals,” he added. -TradeArabia News Service