Dubai AI travel startup raises seven figures for extended stays
Plus VC and Orbit Ventures led Dubai-based estaie's pre-seed funding round
#UAE #funding– Dubai-based extended-stay platform estaie has closed a seven-figure pre-seed funding round, led by early-stage venture funds Plus VC and Orbit Ventures, with participation from angel network Falak Angels, Saudi Arabia-based startup studio Value Makers Studio (VMS), and angel investor Vasil Zdravkov. The capital will drive expansion from Dubai into Riyadh, targeting the structural gap between short-term hotel stays and long-term residential leasing, a segment the company argues has been largely ignored by mainstream travel technology.
SO WHAT? – Extended stay is one of hospitality’s most persistent blind spots. While platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb optimised ruthlessly for short nightly stays, the 30-to-365-night segment remained fragmented, opaque, and largely manual. estaie is among the first platforms in the MENA region to go after this gap with purpose-built AI infrastructure, and its early traction figures suggest there could be sizeable unmet demand waiting to be captured.
Here are some key points about the fund raise:
estaie has raised a seven-figure pre-seed round led by Plus VC and Orbit Ventures, with backing from Falak Angels, Value Makers Studio (VMS), and angel investor Vasil Zdravkov. The funds will support regional expansion, with Saudi Arabia identified as the primary growth market following the platform’s UAE launch.
The platform was founded in 2025 and is incubated by in5, Dubai’s startup incubator run by TECOM Group PJSC. It specialises in bookings of 30 to 365 nights, offering a guaranteed minimum discount of 32% compared to standard providers, with no hidden fees or booking charges.
CEO Osama Shawky is a six-time founder with three exits and over $200 million raised across his career. He previously held regional leadership roles at Orange Business and Concentrix, and was part of the founding team of UAE telco du.
Meanwhile, CTO Nimit Solanki brings deep AI product experience from Careem, Grab, and Deutsche Telekom and COO Mark Reed adds 30 years of travel and hospitality expertise from Finnair, Trailfinders, and The Walt Disney Company — giving the founding team an unusually broad mix of tech and operational depth.
Since launching in April 2025, estaie has signed over 400 hotels and more than 1,000 holiday homes, including three major regional agreements. Partner brands include Hilton, Shangri-La, IHG, Jumeirah, Radisson, Rotana, and Accor, among others.
Guest bookings have exceeded 3,000 room nights on estaie.com, with the platform recording 17–18% month-on-month growth. The company describes this as placing it among the fastest-growing hospitality technology startups currently operating in the region.
The core technology is built entirely in-house, with three patents pending. It combines AI-driven dynamic pricing with demand aggregation and distribution — addressing what estaie describes as systemic inefficiency across underutilised hotel inventory and fragmented pricing models.
estaie holds a Travel Industry Designator Service (TIDS) licence issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), adding a layer of institutional credibility that should support its push into corporate travel and enterprise clients.
[Written and edited with the assistance of AI]