Dubai-Based Takeem Secures Investment From Second Century Ventures, The World’s Most Active Proptech VC Firm

Dubai-headquartered startup Takeem has secured an undisclosed investment from Second Century Ventures, billed as the world's most active proptech venture capital (VC) firm.

Second Century Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the American trade association National Association of Realtors, made the investment in Takeem through REACH Middle East, the regional arm of its globally recognized REACH accelerator program.

Founded by Rakesh Mavath and Pooja Vithlani in the UAE in 2023, Takeem targets structural inefficiencies in rental markets by using a proprietary risk intelligence engine and a rental guarantee model to reduce landlord exposure, improve yield predictability, and widen tenant access across residential portfolios.

In an interview with Inc. Arabia, Mavath said that the company originated from a problem that he and his co-founder experienced while renting property in the UAE. “Takeem started with a very simple, very Dubai problem: the frustration of renting," he shared. "I'm a tenant, Pooja is a landlord, and we were both experiencing the frustrations from different sides of the equation. We decided to stop complaining and started building to benefit all stakeholders." 

That early focus for Takeem has translated into rapid growth over a short period. In under a year, Takeem has onboarded more than 55,000 residential units, representing over AED5 billion (US$1.36 billion) in annual rental value. “Our core offering is the Takeem Rent Guarantee," Mavath explained. "We eliminate default risk for landlords, corporates, family offices, and property managers, while giving tenants more flexibility and affordability. Agents close deals faster and earn more. But the deeper mission is simpler: 'Rent. Own. Relax.' We want to take the anxiety out of renting and owning for everyone in the transaction."

After initially working with large-scale property owners and operators, Takeem is now widening its customer base to include individual landlords. The move marks a shift from serving primarily institutional portfolios to addressing the needs of smaller property owners, while maintaining the same standards around risk assessment and underwriting. “The shift from institutional portfolios to individual landlords is essentially a distribution problem wrapped in a trust problem," Mavath explained. "Institutional clients have procurement processes, legal teams, and a framework for evaluating risk. Individual landlords make decisions emotionally and fast, and they've usually been burned before. Operationally, we've had to build for volume without sacrificing the ethos that makes our guarantees mean something. That means leaning hard into Pooja's product and artificial intelligence and machine learning background, automated tenant risk scoring, flexible digital rental payments, and decisioning that doesn't require a human in the loop for every application.”

Key to Takeem's proposition is how it packages its offering for customers across the market. “The Takeem Rental Guarantee is not just rental protection; it is a bundle of services we offer to our customers," Mavath said. "It's rent protection, emergency maintenance assistance, lowering the costs for landlords, and digital payments, doing away with the check circus. We are backed by some very large names, which enables us to offer those services to our customers as a value-add. Our data advantage is actually our protection here. We're sitting on transaction-level rental data that precedes market movements by six to nine months. We can see stress building in specific segments before it surfaces publicly. That's our edge and discipline, and we intend to keep sharpening it.” 

Mavath added that Takeem’s approach to raising capital was guided by its belief in building ahead of the market, with data at the core of its strategy. “Before fundraising, we had to prove internally that we’re building something scalable and defensible, not a ‘nice-to-have,’" he shared. "We were disciplined about this. We didn't go fundraising to institutions on a promise. We went with proof. Bilateral data showing proprietary market current and future trends, and a product that was already onboarding large institutions. We wanted to walk in and show that our model had been tested and would excel in a down market, not just in a bull run. We had a clear product definition: a platform layer that complements the ecosystem rather than competes with it, demonstrated demand from institutional operators and strategic channels, and a roadmap that prioritizes automation, scalability, and compliance from day one. That's a very different conversation."

As Takeem thus continues to build out its platform, Mavath said the significance of its latest investor extends well beyond the capital involved. “Second Century Ventures' backing of Takeem gives us something money genuinely can't buy at our stage: credibility that rails into institutional real estate globally," Mavath said. "It isn't just a check, it's a signal to the market that your model has been stress-tested by people who've seen every proptech wave since the category existed. REACH is one of the few groups globally that truly understands housing infrastructure, distribution, compliance, consumer behavior, and the messy reality between ‘a lease signed’ and ‘rent received.’ Their involvement acts as a global statement that this isn’t just a feature; it’s foundational infrastructure for rental markets. It’s the ability to compare what’s working in the GCC with lessons from North America and other mature markets, especially around go-to-market motion, stakeholder alignment (agents/ property managers /landlords), and building trust into the workflow.” 

In addition to the strategic value of the investment itself, Takeem's partnership with REACH has also had a tangible impact on how quickly it has been able to move across markets. “The network effect is real, [we've got] access to property managers, brokerages, and institutional portfolios across markets we'd otherwise spend years trying to penetrate," Mavath revealed. "For us in the GCC, where trust is the currency of every business-to-business relationship, having that backing accelerated conversations that would have taken much longer.”

Drawing on his experience building Takeem in the region’s property market, Mavath shared guidance for other proptech founders navigating the GCC ecosystem. “Solve a real-world problem for real people,” he advised. “We built Takeem because we faced the same frustrations as landlords and tenants, and we were looking for a solution.” He also underscored the importance of working alongside existing market participants, noting, “If your product makes agents, property managers, landlords, or regulators feel disintermediated, you’ll hit resistance. Win by fitting into workflows and helping everyone do their jobs better.”

Mavath also pointed to credibility as playing a decisive role in how businesses scale in the region. “In the GCC, trust and reputation move markets," he said. "Prioritize accountability, clear customer outcomes, strong governance, and simple messaging.” Distribution is everything in the region, Mavath added. “A great product with no trust network goes nowhere," he said. "Partner aggressively, especially with those who already have relationships. They don't want to compete with you; they want to offer their clients more value. Be that value." For Mavath, that approach is also tied to a longer-term view of how industries evolve. "The market is never ready, until suddenly it is," he said. "Build now, be loud about what you're seeing, and when the wave comes, you want to already be standing on the board.”

Pictured in the lead image are Takeem co-founders Rakesh Mavath and Pooja Vithlani. Image courtesy Takeem.